Wednesday, December 31, 2008

On the fourth floor of the Palace of Arts, the exhibition space featuring this year’s Cairo Biennale, I felt something strange.

At 2 pm at the crowded opening, with cameras clicking, the tin laughter and the inescapable fashionparade, I felt serene.

The piece before me, a computer generated installation of three trees, was titled “Dervish.”

I’d met the artist, Jennifer Steinkamp the day before, with curator Kimberli Meyer, who’d suggested she represent the US in the Biennale. We sat together for an interview at the American Embassy headquarters in Garden City. Both Steinkamp and Meyer hail from Los Angeles. It was there that Meyer first saw Steinkamp’s work in 1995 at the Acme Gallery. She’s been following Steinkamp’s work ever since.

Steinkamp’s presentation “Through line” has a notable history. While presenting a work at the Istanbul Biennale in 2003, she attended a Sufi dance performance, also known as the whirling dervishes. Inspired by their movements, she designed a group of computer animated trees whose swaying branches mirror the dancers’ movements.

“They don’t turn all the way around because trees are rooted in the ground. But they’re kind of trees going into a trance and then every couple of minutes they change seasons.”

Indeed they did. Among a venerable hodgepodge of international paintings, installations and sculpture sharing space at the Palace, Steinkamp’s work stood tall, serenely as one might experience from watching the Sufi dancers.

Occupying a room of its own, a set of three trees, projected almost to scale, swayed gracefully. Each leaf turned over itself with delicate timing, and for that moment provided a refuge from the visual traffic I’d crossed through to see it.

“I made this as a homage to the Middle East because the United States was going to war, and I didn’t understand it,” Steinkamp said.

When asked about different receptions to the piece in different locations, she replied, “That’s why I’m putting this here. I thought I want to bring ‘Dervish’ here. It showed in New York, and I wanted to see how people would receive it here.”

“This theme [of peace] started with a piece called ‘Jimmy Carter,’ which was after 9/11, and we were going to war with Afghanistan and I didn’t get it. And you couldn’t say anything against the war, because, you know, everyone was so upset. And if you did say something against the war you were unpatriotic, and siding with the terrorists.

So I decided I wanted to make a work about peace, and decided to name it ‘Jimmy Carter’ because he was a president who stood for peace. It was actually at the same time he was winning the Nobel Peace Prize, so I thought that was a nice coincidence.”

“Carter” is in fact a wall of virtual flowers. Like most of Steinkamp’s work, it is not overtly political; its visual effect strongly abstracted, in contrast to its concrete title.

“I always thought the titles are one of the key things in Jennifer’s work.” Meyer said. “Not everybody chooses to title their work. That’s why I think her work is also linguistically based, not just visually based.”

In light of Steinkamp’s pacifist stance, and outspokenness against the war, I asked her if she found it ironic to be here as a guest of the American Embassy. “I know, it’s funny isn’t it? What am I doing here?” she said with a laugh. “Well, now we have Obama.”

Meyer chimed in. “The great thing about Jennifer’s work is that you can read it in many different ways. It can be very visual and physical, and that’s pretty much the predominant thing. Then if you want to get into it more, if you want to unpack the titles, then you can go with that or not, but it’s optional. ... It’s not a message that pounds you over the head. It’s not completely apolitical, not at all, but you can kind of choose. And it is positive politics, it’s not negative, and I think that’s part of it too.”

In addition to her participation at the Biennale, the curator has also ventured out to see more about what’s happening in other parts of Cairo. She spoke of her interest in building a bridge between Cairo and LA.

“Cairo has the reputation of being the center of filmmaking, certainly in the Middle East, and we do too, so that’s a parallel I thought of from the beginning. There’s also a sort of odd similarity in the climate, and the smog,” Meyer chuckled.

“Cairo also has a reputation for being one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East,” she continued. “And LA, as opposed to New York, kind of has a reputation for being more edgy. We see Cairo as a kind of progressive urban center in the Middle East, and we want to create a sort of dialogue.”

On her experience of Cairo in juxtaposition to her home, Steinkamp concluded, “I think our highways are dreamy now. After getting stuck in traffic here, I can go get stuck in traffic there and think, ‘this is not so bad’.”

Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology is set to pay tribute to the American scholar of Sufism, Professor Carl. W. Ernst.

The North Carolina University professor of religious studies will be awarded the Farabi International Award for his 1996 book on Ruzbihan Baqli, the 12th-century Persian poet. Ernst's book has been translated into Persian twice and is widely used in Iranian universities.

Ernst attended a conference in Iran earlier this month, during which he called for increased academic and cultural cooperation between Iran and the US.

American Mowlavi expert, William Chittick and George Washington University lawyer, Miriam Galston will also be honored during the ceremony.

Carl W. Ernst is an expert in Islamic studies, who has conducted extensive research into Islam and Sufism. His recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement.

The academic work of a UNC religion professor will be honored by the Iranian government

Tehran: Carl Ernst, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, is a scholar of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. He wrote a book about a 12th-century Sufi poet that is widely used in Iranian universities, and he has traveled extensively in the Middle Eastern country.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports that Ernst will accept the Farabi International Award during a ceremony in Iran on Saturday. Recipients are chosen by the Iranian ministry of science, research and technology.

Ernst was in Iran for a conference earlier this month and said he received "an incredibly enthusiastic response" when he made a strong plea for improved academic and cultural relations between Iran and the United States.

Ernst will be honored for his 1996 book on Ruzbihan Baqli, the 12th-century poet born in what is now Iran. The book has twice been translated into Persian.

Two other US academics also will be honored: William Chittick, a religion scholar at the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and Miriam Galston, a lawyer at George Washington University.

The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage continues this January its highly successful series of World Music concerts with the avant-garde flamenco of Diego Amador and the mystical sufi blend of Badila Ensemble.

Director of Arts and Culture Abdulla Salim al Amri says: “We have been impressed by the response of the audience that has filled Al Dhafra Auditorium on every single occasion: a diverse mix of nationalities, ethnicities, ages and social backgrounds, united by love of music from Jazz to Folk to Fusion. They gave standing ovations and demanded encores from such a variety of artists as Liu Fang, Dennys Baptiste and Taksim Trio.”

“With this kind of audience on board we are encouraged to continue bringing to Abu Dhabi the superb artists we have engaged this year, hoping that we make a small contribution to peoples’ understanding of the incredible uniting force that is Music around the world,”he added.

[...]

The Badila Ensemble/ France, India, Pakistan
Enter the world of trans-oriental Sufi groove with this extraordinary intercontinental Ensemble.

Initiated by the French percussionist Bastien Lagatta, Badila is the project of refined fusion between western and eastern soundscapes, where Islamic influences merge with Hindu traditions, Indian rhythms converge with Arab and Persian melodies.

Badila proposes a unifying vision and an open modern dialogue where secret worlds come together in a feast of the imagination for an unforgettable live experience.

New Delhi: Fifty-year-old Kangalini Sufia sings of freedom and God. The wandering minstrel from Bangladesh is a Baul folk musician of the Sufiana tradition - a blend of Bengali baul (village folk music) and the Islamic Sufi music that originated in Persia and subsequently travelled to India.

A follower of Bangladeshi Sufi-baul legend Lalon Fakir, Kangalini was in the capital to perform at the ongoing Delhi International Arts festival with her nine-member band at the Ashok amphitheatre Sunday.

“I am a native of Kushtia district of Bangladesh,” said the frail minstrel, clad in a yellow cotton sari in the traditional Bengali style with a red vermillion mark on the forehead.

She played a two-string instrument (do-tara) and a little wooden hand cymbal as she danced around the podium singing about “man’s desire to be one with the Almighty”.

Kushtia, Kangalini’s hometown in western Bangladesh, is known for its association with Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who stayed at the Kuthibari (a mansion) in the district during his visit to Bangladesh, erstwhile east Bengal. Kushtia is also home to the shrine of Bengali Sufi mystic Lalon Fakir - and the Islamic University.

Kangalini had been initiated into the Sufi-Baul music early in life.

“I have been singing for the last 40 years since I was 14. But I became a full-fledged musician after my brother’s death in the Bangladesh Liberation war in 1971. I took my mother and set out to perform across the country; but my mother eventually died of the pain of losing my brother and my father,” Kangalini told IANS in an interview after her performance.

The musician, who has composed over 500 songs, sang five numbers - three of her own compositions and two by Lalon Fakir. She began the recital with “Hawa dome dekho cheye” a composition by Lalon Fakir, and followed it up with her own songs “Jeevan cholar pothe” and “Matir Gachhe Lau Dorechhe”.

“The Baul-Sufi songs of Bangladesh are more spiritual than those of Bengal because most of them are connected to the Islamic faith and emanate from the Muslim shrines that dot the land,” she said.

“Baul is very popular in Faridpur, Kushtiya and Meherpur districts of Bangladesh,” said Kangalini, who has performed nine times in London, once in the US and recently in Italy.
“Sufi-Baul was a great hit in Italy,” the musician said.

The singer claims to be self-styled. “As a child I used to sing by myself, but as I became professional, I realised that I needed a guru and trained under Halim Bayati and Deven Khaba, two Bangladeshi baul exponents,” Kangalini said.

The Baul-Sufi tradition in Bangaldesh has been immortalised by Lalon Shah (Fakir), a Sufi saint. Most of his songs speak of self-understanding and have inherent messages that people often follow in their own lives.

According to Dhaka-based professor Anwarul Karim, in Bangladesh there is a category of Sufi mystics who travel with folk musical instruments and an alms bag. These dervishes, neither Hindu or Muslims, love music that speaks of the human body as the microcosm and the soul as the elusive bird. Their songs are full of rural analogies.

“The Baul traditions of West Bengal and Bangladesh are different and yet similar. As Bangladesh is a Muslim country, the Baul singers are extremely conscious of the language - it is a monument of language that celebrates life and spirituality. In Bengal, Baul is a bit about nostalgia,” said Ashok Vajpayee, pro-tem chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, who felicitated Kangalini and her entourage.

Baul music was declared a Masterpiece of Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

A large number of devotees and followers of the sufi saint will participate in the urs of the spiritual leader of the sub-continent.

The district administration have finalised all necessary arrangements to facilitate the visiting pilgrims while the district police have made tight security arrangements to avoid any untoward incident during the urs.

DCO reviews security for Baba Farid's urs, Muharram: District Coordination Officer (DCO) Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed has directed to make adequate security arrangements to ensure protection of life and property of the people during the month of Muharramul Haram and annual urs of Hazrat Baba Farid Uddin Masood popularly known as Ganj-e-Shakar.

Presiding over a meeting here on Sunday to review the urs and security arrangements for Muharramul Harram, the DCO urged the Ulema and Khateebs to play their due role in maintaining peace, brotherhood and harmony during Muharram and also extend their cooperation to district administration and police in this regard.

He further directed TMAs to make arrangements of lights and cleanliness of the routes of Muharram processions and Majalis places.

Best possible arrangements made for Urs: Ehasan Uddin
The Punjab government is taking practical steps to provide basic facilities to the people of the province. Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Minister Haji Ehsan Uddin Qureshi said this while talking to reporters here on Sunday.

He said that the government has taken various revolutionary measures to improve the working of public sectors departments including education and health. He further said that Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif believes in good governance in the province.

The minister said that certain elements are trying to disturb the political process in the country to achieve their personal interest, adding that they would never be succeeded in their nefarious design.

He said that all necessary arrangements are being made to facilitate the visitors of the shrine of Hazarat Baba Farid Uddin Masood on the occasion of his annual urs.

Islamabad: Dark clouds of animosity and distrust are once again hovering over India and Pakistan, and there is uncertainty about where and how these will lift. Does Sufism hold the answer? Yes, says the Lahore-based Ajoka Theatre Group.

On Sunday, 22 members of the group will leave for India, hoping to take some ions out of the current charged atmosphere between the two countries with their acclaimed play Bullah about the great Sufi saint Bulleh Shah and his message of peace and tolerance.

“We hope in this small way we can help to resume the dialogue for peace between the two countries because finally, dialogue is the only way to end conflict, not war,” said Madeeha Gauhar, a well-known actor who is also Ajoka’s director.

The group is going to India at the invitation of the Sangeet Natak Academy to perform at the International Theatre Festival that begins on December 22 in Thrissur in Kerala.

Bulleh Shah’s early life coincided with the final decades of Mughal rule that witnessed conflict, political chaos and civil and religious strife, especially between Sikhs and Muslims.

Through his verses, Bullah, as he is popularly known, called for tolerance and love in an atmosphere of hatred and bigotism, urging people to respect each other’s religious beliefs. At every turn, he challenged Islamic orthodoxy for which he was branded an infidel and attracted several fatwas.

Main attraction
The legend goes that when Bullah died, the mullahs of his native Kasur, now in Pakistan’s Punjab province, refused to allow him to be buried in the city graveyard. He was buried outside, but his followers turned it into a shrine that is even today Kasur’s main attraction, bringing together tens of thousands of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu pilgrims for an annual urs in August.

Bullah’s verses have been set to music by many singers, and have a following across the world for its humanism and compassion.

A tribute
The play Bullah is a tribute to this famous mystic, and is based on the events of his life, through his poetry, historical records and legend. But his search for truth, his conflict with the intolerant clergy and corrupt rulers, his opposition to war and bloodshed in the name of religion, which are presented powerfully in the play, have a contemporary resonance.

More relevant
This is not the first time that Ajoka is staging Bullah in India. It has been shown in Delhi, Punjab and Jammu. The invitation to the festival in Kerala came much before the Mumbai attacks, but according to Ms. Gauhar, the fallout makes the message of the play all the more important and relevant.

“Our experience with Bullah is that wherever in India or Pakistan we have taken it, the message of love and harmony and peace of Bulleh Shah and of Sufism in general has found an instant response among audiences,” said Ms. Gauhar.

It will also help to keep alive the people-to-people contacts , which Ms. Gauhar said, are “vital” in the present situation.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

AR Rahman and music are synonymous. The mellifluous magic that the maestro composes enchants the very being of listeners across the world.

His soulful music is a balm in these chaotic times, when India wreathes in pain after repeated terror attacks on its integrity and bloodbath in the name of region and religion.

And now he has won the prestigious Golden Globe nomination for his compositions for the internationally acclaimed ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ In an exclusive interview to Spicezee.com’s Swati Chaturvedi in ‘Kahiye Janaab’, AR Rahman shares his views on these turbulent times, his music and much more.

Swati: Being an artist, you are all the more sensitive to the problems that are plaguing the nation. What is your reaction to the terror attacks in Mumbai?
Rahman: I was completely devastated. The whole week was very bad. I had to finish a film. I finished the film and left for America. I was going through stress and extreme sadness. It took me almost a week to return back to my normal self.

Swati: Are you sad or angry after the attacks?
Rahman: Both. I am angry because it is inhuman to take lives. People who are responsible for our protection (read politicians) should not only inform and alert everyone, but also provide proper security. Rich or poor, every human being is entitled to proper security against such attacks. The good thing is that people are mature, they understand the problem and are not getting involved in the blame game. People are trying to tackle the problem intellectually. It’s important for educated masses to understand and work towards preventing such terror acts in the future.

Swati: You feel that the country is developing but do you think, somewhere the politicians are holding back the nation?Rahman: No. India is a young country. Indians are strong and are progressing. Nobody can hold us back. I firmly believe that Indians are sensible and spiritual. Of late, the understanding has become better. We know what is true and what is false.

Swati: Your good friend Aamir Khan refrained from celebrating Eid. Did you celebrate Eid?
Rahman: No Eid this time. Even my wife called up and said that she doesn’t feel like celebrating Eid. There was so much sadness everywhere.

Swati: Of late, Islam is being labeled. What is the message of Islam for you?
Rahman: I became spiritual because of Sufism and it is a universal phenomenon. Sufism has followers from all religion. Because of Sufism, I have got success. India is a blessed place; even the Prophet has said this. Religion should not be labeled. Education is the message of Islam. Everyone should get proper education so that they gain wisdom.

Swati: How much does the political situation in the country affect your music?
Rahman: It actually kind of exhausted my energy. I had to take a break. I was in shock last week, but music is my medicine. Music transports and heals you. I feel that I am blessed and I want to share the same feeling with others. That’s why I don’t take hiatus from work because it is work that rejuvenates me. It is great to give something as beautiful as music to others.

Swati: Your song ‘Rubaru’ was very well received. Please tell us about it.
Rahman: ‘Rubaru’ means light and it is relevant in these dark days. Right now, there is so much confusion, negative feelings and anger. As an artist, what you can give is love and free hugs.

Swati: You have got stupendous success as a music composer. Which is personally your favourite album?
Rahman: My latest Nokia Connections album gave me a lot of creative freedom. I did what I wanted to do. The song collection in the album is diverse. There are songs, which have never been done before. I have used a different style. The internal feedback that I have received is very good. Let’s see what people have to say about it. The compositions include a song from old Tamil literature, a love song - Jiah se Jiah, Punjabi song – Dil and other tracks.

Swati: Your music is becoming more meditative with age. Your take on this…
Rahman: I became old when I was 12 due to the circumstances in my family. May be I am getting younger now.

Swati: What is your inspiration while composing a romantic song?
Rahman: Love is definitely a phenomenon that transports you into a different world. Love is such a feeling that is beautiful. Even if a person is coming to murder you, love can change that person.

The interview ended on such a ‘lovely’ note, the maestro even crooned ‘Jiah se Jiah’ love song.

Hyderabad: The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation has established an FM Radio Station at Bhitshah town on the directives of the government to promote the poetry of great Sufi Saint Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and spread his message of mysticism based on love, peace, affection and brotherhood.

The radio station has started functioning after its inauguration by Sindh Minister for Culture and Tourism Sussui Paleejo.

Besides the FM radio, the Sindh Culture Department has planned to organise an international conference on Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai on the eve of his annual Urs celebrations, the minister said while addressing the inaugural ceremony.

She said the department will also establish the Shah Abdul Latif Research Cell in Bhitshah with the objective of spreading the universal message of the great Sufi saint in the entire world.

Sussui Paleejo said that the department had also prepared a comprehensive plan under which a website on Shah Latifís poetry will be developed so that the people around the world could know about his preaching.

She said the upgrading of the Bhitshah Library, Rest House and beautification of Bhitshah Town along with its Karar Lake have also been made part of this scheme. She added that Bhitshah town will give the look of a developed town of the province by the end of 2009.

She said implementation of the scheme of Bhitshah Radio Station was a great achievement of the PPP government and termed it as a gift for the people of Sindh.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Music can be found in every walk of life. If we only care to listen carefully as we breathe in and out, we will be able to hear rhythm in the beating of our hearts. All religions have made music a part of worship. One such form of music is Sufi music.

From the ancient times, music has played an important role in people’s lives. After the day’s hard work most of us like to spend our leisure, listening to the music. It refreshes and relaxes our mind.

Without music life would have stopped after a certain point of time. It is music that soothes the heart and soul. Music can be found in every walk of life. If we only care to listen carefully as we breathe in and out, we will be able to hear rhythm in the beat of our hearts. It is inspired by the beauties around the world.

In the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan, a 19th century Sufi teacher, “The art of music is especially divine, because it is the exact miniature of the laws working within the whole universe. Music inspires not only the soul of great musicians, but also the infant who begins to move to the rhythm of music as soon as s/he steps out into the world.”

All religions have made music a part of worship. One such form of music is Sufi music. Sufism claims to be the reality of religion in Islam, which encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and practises to the divine love - God.

The followers of Sufism are known as Sufis who especially love music calling it as Ghiza-i-ruh, which means “food of the soul”.

The word Sufi originates from Suf, the Arabic word which means wool. Suf refers to the simple cloaks that the early ascetics used to wore. According to another theory, the root word of Sufi is the Arabic word Safa which means purity. Thus this theory placed the concept of Sufism on purity of thought, heart and soul.

The great Sufi masters have defined Sufism as a type of knowledge. Sheikh Ahmad Zarraq, a 15th century Sufi, defined Sufism as, “A science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God,” in his The Principles of Sufism. Ibn Ajiba, one of the best known Sufi masters, defined Sufism as, “A science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of Divine, purify one’s inward from filth and beautify it with praiseworthy traits.”

Notwithstanding its different definitions, Sufism remains a pure form of worship that transcends the barriers of religion even though it originated in one, namely Islam. Most importantly, it celebrates life and the Divine through one medium that each and everyone of us understand - Music. Music is the sole basis of Sufism.

Dhikr, a devotional act which means the remembrance of God is commanded in The Koran; is followed by many Sufi traditions, while orthodox Islam looks down on music.

Many Sufi traditions seek to utilise its emotive and communal power towards the goal of Dhikr. Sama is one of the central forms of group Dhikr. Literally, Sama means listening but it also has the connotation of a spiritual concert of sacred music, which is often blended with dance.

Rock music is also rooted in the trend of Sufi music. The sound of the famous Pakistani rock band Junoon can be termed as “Sufi Rock”. In 1993, Nadeem F Paracha claims to have coined the term to define Junoon’s then pioneering process of fusing conventional rock music with sub-continental Sufi music and imagery.

“Today, like every other day, we woke up empty and frightened,” noted the great Sufi mystic Jalauddin Rumi in the 13th century. “Don’t open the door to study and begin reading. Instead, take down a musical instrument; let the beauty we love be what we do,” wrote he.

By Farhad Shakely, "The Naqshbandi shaikhs of Hawraman and the heritage of Khalidiyya-Mujaddidiyya in Kurdistan Part II" - The Kurdish Globe - Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Siraj ad-Dini Shaikhs
The Siraj ad-Dini sheiks have been the most prominent representatives of the Khalidi suborder in Kurdistan since the time Mawlana Khalid left Kurdistan for Damascus at the end of 1237 A. H./autumn, 1822.

Indeed Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din I (1195/1781-1283/1867) was the most important figure among Mawlana Khalid's disciples even at a time when Mawlana was still living in Kurdistan and/or in Baghdad. The two men knew each other as students of Islamic sciences (faqê in Kurdish), and they met once again in Baghdad in 1226/1811 when Mawlana stayed in the mosque of Shaikh Abd al-Qadir al-Gaylani five months, shortly after his return from India to Sulaimanî.

It was then that Faqê Uthman, who afterwards was known as Siraj ad-Din I, was initiated to the path by Mawlana. After two years of spiritual training, he was the first person to become a khalifa (deputy) of Mawlana on the whole. He was then thirty three years old.

Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din was born in Tawêla, in Hawraman region, near Halabja. According to many sources his parents were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. The family, thus, is a Sayyid family. But the Siraj ad-Dini Shaikhs never claimed being Sayyids. Shaikh Uthman signed his letters with his own name followed by al-Khalidi al-Mujaddidi an-Naqshbandi.

Shaikh Uthman accompanied his preceptor during the years in which Mawlana was twice obliged to leave Sulaimani for Baghdad. In Sulaimani Shaikh 'Uthman usually substitued for Mawlana in the khatm assemblies. The disciples were instructed by Mawlana to attend Uthman's khatm circles. Among these were outstanding names like Sayyid Isma'il Daghistani, Mulla Abd al-Hakim Kashghari and Shaikh Muhammad of Halabja.

Apparently Mawlana Khalid, who had much organisational ability, was preparing his disciple to succeed him and to take the difficult and crucial responcibility of spreading the order in Kurdistan.

When Mawlana left Sulaimani for Baghdad for the last time in 1820, Shaikh Uthman did not follow him. He moved, instead, to his home region, Hawraman, and began to establish a strong base for the order, which became one of the most important centres for the Khalidi suborder in the whole Middle East and continued to be such untill the fifties of the present century. This centre not only contributed greatly in spreading the sufi teachings of the Naqshbandi order, but also produced a number of poets whose poems are examples of the most significant and marvellous sufi poetry as a whole.

This indispensable position of Siraj ad-Din for Mawlana and for the order, becomes more clear when we know that during the summer months of 1236/1821 and 1237/1822 Mawlana left the heat of Baghdad for the summer resorts of Hawraman where he met Siraj ad-Din and supervised the Naqshbandi networks in Kurdistan. Shaikh Uthman also visited Mawlana in Baghdad, at least once, during this period.

It was from Kurdistan, not from Baghdad, as it is commonly, but wrongly, accepted in the sources about the Khalidi suborder, that Mawlana Khalid went to Damascus.

After leaving Sulaimânî in 1236/1822, Mawlana was represented in his Sulaimani khanaqa by Shaikh Abdullah Hirati (d. 1245/1839-40), who was assisted by Shaikh Muhammad Sahib (d.1283/1866), the brother of Mawlana. When Mawlana died in 1242/1827 Hirati, and a short time later also Sahib, left for Damascus. A few years later, in 1254/1838 the Baban Ahmad Pasha invited Shaikh Uthman to be in charge of the Khalidi khanaqa in Sulaimani. The Shaikh accepted the task and supervised the khanaqa, but he did not abandon Hawraman, to where he returned often.

With the exception of those two years, Shaikh Uthman lived in Tawêla and Biyara, in Hawraman, from 1236/1820, the year Mawlana left Sulaimani for Baghdad, until his death, i.e. Shaikh Uthman's death, in 1283/1867. In nearly half a century he was the most prominent khalifa of Mawlana Khalid in Hawraman and Baban regions.

The Shaikh had a great number of khalîfas and mansûbs /deputies and affiliates from different regions in Kurdistan and the Middle East. In his hagiography about Mawlana Khalid and the Naqshbandi Shaikhs of Hawraman, Malâ 'Abd al-Karîm-î Mudarris enumerates 96 khaiîfas and 33 mansubs of Shaikh Uthman. Among them we find many great 'ulama and poets but also two powerful rulers; Ahmad Pasha of Baban and Rizaquli Khan of Sina (Sanadaj) in Ardalan.

This is contrary to what many researchers inferred, that the Naqshbandiyya was only an assembly for opposition sects in the Kurdish soceity.

In addition to his letters there are a few lines of poetry and ten advisory articles by Shaikh Uthman, in which he instructes his disciples in the issues of the order. In one of these articles, dated 1272/1856, he appoints his sons Muhammad Baha' ad-Din and Abd ar-Rahman as his deputies and successors and advises his followers to obey them.

Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din I was succeeded in turn by five Shaikhs in his family. But it should be indicated also that other members of the family have been in charge of the path in different periods, with own disciples and khanaqas.

He was succeeded directly by his son Shaikh Muhammad Baha' ad-Din (1252/1837 -1298/1881).

Although in his testament, Siraj ad-Din had appointed two of his sons; Baha' ad-Din and Abd ar-Rahman Abu al-Wafa (1253/1837-1285/1868) to be his successors, but apart from a very short time, Shaikh Abd ar-Rahman declined the position and resided in Baghdad.

He was a creating poet. The small amount of poems to which we have access today, some 70 poems in Persian, mostly ghazals, indicates his talent as a sufi poet. Baha' ad-Din also was a poet, although only a few of his poems are extant.

The third Shaikh in the Siraj ad-Din silsila (initiating chain) was Shaikh Umar Zhia' ad-Din (1255/1839-1318/1901). He was distiguished from his predecessors in some aspects. It was in his time as a Shaikh that dhikr-i jahr (vocal remembrance) was practised besides dhikr-i khafi (silent remembrance). He was known for his enthusiasm for science and education, and for culture as a whole. He built several new khanaqas in Khanaqin, Kifri, Qizrabat, Biyara, Tawêla and Sardasht. He was a brilliant poet in Kurdish, Persian and Arabic. In his poems he used "Fawzî" as his takhallus (pen name).

We have access also to some fifty letters written by him to his deputies or to the great men of his time, among whom we find the Qajari Shah Muzaffar ad-Din (reigned 1896-1907) and the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid II (reigned 1876-1909). There are, moreover, three treatises on sufi teachings.

A remarkable feature in the life of Shaikh Umar Ziya' ad-Din was his good relation to the Qadiri Shaikhs and their disciples and followers, which will be dealt with later.

The immediate successor in the chain was his son Shaikh Najm ad-Din (1280/1863-1337/1918) who was known for his zuhd (renunciation). The Ottomans wanted to give him a monthly salary to use it for the Khanaqa and its visitors, but the Shaikh rejected the offer.

He had great interest in intellectual conversations with the scholars who so often visited the khanaqah in Biyâra. He was a poet, but the number of the poems available to us is very small.

Shaikh Najm ad-Din was succeded by his brother Shaikh Muhammad Ala' ad-Din (1280/1863-1373/1954). He wrote a treatise in Arabic entitled Tibb al-Qulub (Healing the hearts) which contains advices and recommendations. He was a well-known phisician who helped thousands of people in the region and he prescribed them herbal medicine.

When Shaikh Ala' ad-Din died in 1954 he was succeeded by his son Shaikh Muhammad Uthman Siraj ad-Din II (1314/1896-1417/1997), who was already a well-known and established sufi leader. Shaikh Uthman II was deeply learned in Islamic theology as well as in Kurdish and Persian poetry. He was moreover a skillful phisician with wide knowledge of herbal medicine.

When the monarchy in Iraq was overthrown by General Abd al-Karim Qasim, Shaikh Uthman left Iraqi Kurdistan in 1959 and resided in Iranian Kurdistan about two decades. After the Iranian revolution he came back to Hawraman, Iraqi Kurdistan, but he soon left it for Baghdad.

He spent the last seven/eight years of his life in Istanbul, where he died on 30 January, 1997. He was buried inside his residence, close to the khanaqa in Istanbul.

Shaikh Uthman was also a poet; two volumes of his poems, in Kurdish and Persian, are published, as well as a volume of his treatises and letters entitled Siraj al-Qulub "Lantern of Hearts" of which an English translation is also published.

Shaikh Uthman died almost simultaneously; as his brother Shaikh Mawlana Khalid, also a sufi leader, in Sanadaj, Iranian Kurdistan. No one of them knew, at least outwardly, about the death of his brother, and thus a great wish of their lives was fulfilled. Both had wished that he may never experience (the usual Kurdish expression here is not to see) the death of his brother. In tens of poems and hundreds of letters that were coming and going between them in the span of the last 70-80 years, they expressed that wish time and again. This was one of the last wondrous deeds (karamat) so often attributed to them throughout their lives. Shaikh Uthmân was 101 years old when he died and Shaikh Khalid was 99.

Shaikh Uthman was named after his great-gradnfather Uthman Siraj ad-Dîn I and Shaikh Khalid was named after Mawlana Khalid.

The role of the Naqshbandi Shaikhs of Hawraman in spreading and establishing the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya-Khalidiyya in Kurdistan and in parts of the Middle-East is of central importance. It was under the guidance of them and their deputies that the order reached most of the regions in Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan, Turkman Sahra in Iran, Northern Syria, Lebanon and Bosnia.

Nevertheless, they still identify themselves as Khalidis and Mujaddidis, and never invented, or claimed to have invented, a new sub-order.

Friday, December 26, 2008

A ceremony was held on Wednesday in the city of Konya to mark the 735th anniversary of the death of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, with politicians giving messages of unity, fraternity and peace

Konya: The ceremony was attended by many Turkish politicians, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertuğrul Günay, who stressed the importance of dialogue, tolerance, fraternity, peace and unity in their speeches.

The ceremony was held on the occasion of the 735th anniversary of the death of Mevlana, a Sufi saint and founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufi dervishes. Called Şeb-i Arus (the Night of Union), it is not a day of mourning but a day of celebration. Mevlana is most famous in the world for his “Mesnevi” (The Couplets), written originally in Persian.

Prime Minister Erdoğan said Mevlana is a source of pride for everyone. “Today is not the anniversary of the death of Mevlana. It is his day of ‘second birth.’ He regarded death as a re-birth,” Erdoğan noted.

He also expressed being disturbed by the association of Islam with terror in Western countries.

“Mosques, churches and synagogues have for centuries existed side-by-side on this land. Those who are trying to associate Islam with terror today cannot turn a blind eye to this fact. Those who discriminate against others due to language, religion or race cannot deny the Islamic tolerance of difference. I call on those who spread Islamophobia and those who associate Islam with terror to read the books of Mevlana,” he stated.

Erdoğan indicated that the world is now in need of Mevlana’s philosophy more than ever.

“People who are trying to shape today’s world with bombs and tanks bring nothing to humanity other than blood and tears. Understanding based on force and violence cause deep splits between civilizations and cultures. They sow seeds of hatred in the hearts of people. Such an understanding that does not allow others the right to exist have to change and renew,” he stated.
Baykal said the fire of Mevlana has warmed the souls of people for 735 years.

“Thousands of people in various countries gather around Mevlana through associations. Mevlana is highly respected by representatives of other religions as well; however, there are people who are attempting to slander Islam through terror and violence. The power to stand against these people is Mevlana, with his affection and tolerance towards all humanity,” he noted.

Baykal also expressed the opinion that Turkey is the place where Islam prevails in the most free, advanced and rational manner.

Günay also delivered a speech at the event and said the world needs Mevlana’s messages of peace.

“It is a great thing to see that the love and respect for Mevlana has continued to increase over the years. The differences between ethnicities and beliefs disappear before the unity and beauty of all the creatures of the creator. Mevlana illuminates the path of feelings and ideas we need today,” he noted.

The Islam of the Taliban is far removed from the popular Sufism practised by most South Asian Muslims

“Normally, we cannot know God,” says Rizwan Qadeer, a neat and amiable inhabitant of Lahore, Western-dressed and American-educated, eyes shining behind his spectacles. “But our saints, they have that knowledge.”

Mr Qadeer is standing in the belly of a shrine that he is building to a modern gnostic, Hafiz Iqbal, whom he venerates especially. Cool, and smelling pleasantly of damp earth and mortar, it holds Iqbal’s grave, covered by an embroidered green shroud and sprinkled with pink rose petals. A young man—a Pakistani resident of London, Mr Qadeer says—stands in silent prayer to the saint, who was employed by Lahore’s municipal government as a street-sweeper, and died in 2001.

In a tradition of popular Sufism, which mingles classical Islamic mysticism with Hinduism and folk beliefs and is a dominant feature of Islam in South Asia, the saint’s divine essence, or baraka, emanates from his tomb. “Physically, our holy saints do die,” says Mr Qadeer. “But the spirit is still here, because they have reached eternity.”

Echoing down a winding stairwell, a scraping of masonry and clink of chisel on marble signal a remarkable monument rising. It is in the scruffy Lahori suburb of Baghbanpura, where Iqbal lived for six decades. From a narrow alley running alongside the shrine, it is mostly hidden: its high outer walls, of recessed brickwork speckled with multicoloured tiles, rising out of sight to a pair of domes and skinny minarets. A few steep steps lead into a small cloistered forecourt, where masons are at work.

Either side of the forecourt, about ten metres apart, are two false burial chambers. These are beautifully decorated, with white marble lattice and marble mosaics studded with green jade, lapis lazuli and agate. One is for Iqbal and the other for his mentor, a mystic called Baba Hassan Din, who lived in a brick cell on this site and died in 1968. The men’s true graves lie underneath, in brick-walled chambers, faintly murmuring with the sounds of the street outside.

According to Mr Qadeer—who had it from Iqbal—Din was, unbeknown to many of his disciples, an Englishman from Birmingham who, early in the last century, abandoned his family and his job on the railways to become a Sufi ascetic. His real name was Alfred, or possibly Albert, Victor. He received his vocation one fine summer evening, in a visitation from Abu Hassan Ali Hujwiri, an 11th-century Persian saint, who is better known as Data Ganj Bakhsh.

In the 1950s, according to Mr Qadeer, Din arrived in Lahore, and passed himself off as a Punjabi. He also adopted a poor local boy, Iqbal, and raised him to be a scholar. According to Mr Qadeer, Iqbal earned several degrees from Government College University, Lahore—one of Pakistan’s finest. But in the early 1960s he embarked on his own spiritual training: taking a job as a sweeper, under an assumed Christian identity. He could not have sunk lower. In the Hindu caste system, which is still discernible in Muslim Pakistan, many generations after its inhabitants converted from Hinduism, street-sweeping is a profession for “untouchables”. Most Christians in Pakistan and India were originally members of that despised Hindu group.

Mr Qadeer, a well-to-do, secular Pakistani, who studied engineering at the University of Houston, became a follower of Iqbal in 1990. He was referred to him in a state of anguish, which he credits the saint, an irascible chain-smoker, with ending. He also believes Iqbal cured his young daughter of a rare intestinal ailment. Other disciples of Iqbal attribute miracles to him, including curing cancer. They say he was omniscient. They believe that, as the height of Sufi attainment, Iqbal knew God.

The stringent, legalistic creeds of the Taliban and other revivalists are on the rise in South Asia, but only a minority follow them. Most of the 450m Muslims in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh—nearly a third of the Islamic world—practise a gentler, more tolerant faith, in which pre-Islamic superstitions are still evident. It is strongly influenced by Sufism, an esoteric and, in theory, nonsectarian Muslim tradition, which is strictly followed by a much smaller number of disciplined initiates. In its popular form, Sufism is expressed mainly through the veneration of saints, including self-styled mystics like those in Lahore, canonised by their followers.

South Asia is littered with the tombs of those saints. They include great medieval monuments, like the 13th-century shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, founder of South Asia’s pre-eminent Sufi order, in Ajmer. But for every famous grave, there are thousands of roadside shrines, jutting into Delhi’s streets, or sprinkled across the craggy deserts of southern Pakistan. On a single hillside in Pakistan’s province of Punjab, outside the town of Thatta, legend has it that 125,000 Muslim saints are buried.

Pakistan’s southernmost state of Sindh, a vast desert bisected by the Indus river, is perhaps best known for its shrines. A few miles outside the city of Hyderabad, in sight of the Indus, a middle-aged dwarf called Subhan manages one of them. She found the shrine deserted a few years ago, and moved into it. It is a small shack, with a low doorway hung with cowbells, in the tradition of a Hindu temple. A dusty green shroud covers the grave. Incense burns at its foot. Subhan says it holds the dust of a medieval saint called Haji Pir Marad. Sometimes, she says, he wrestles with the Indus to prevent it from changing course. In fits of terrible rage, he has caused pileups on the road. She advises passing motorists to propitiate the saint with a modest gift of rupees. On a good day, she collects around 50 rupees (60 cents) from the travellers who stop to pray.

All the traffic, on that recent sunny day, was bound for the nearby town of Sehwan Sharif, where Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most prominent Sufi saints, is entombed. It was the 734th anniversary of his death, an event marked by an annual festival attended by several hundred thousand devotees. This event is known as Qalandar’s urs, or wedding-night, to signify his union with God. A three-day orgy of music, dancing and intoxication, literally and spiritually, the urs at Sehwan is one of the best parties in Pakistan, or anywhere.

Outside Qalandar’s shrine, a white marble monument, decorated with flashing neon, pilgrims work themselves into an all-night ecstasy. Tossing their long black hair, a dozen prostitutes from Karachi or Lahore have a place reserved by the shrine’s golden doorway, to dance a furious jig. It is the dhammal, a rhythmic skipping from foot to foot, for which Qalandar’s followers are well-known. Thousands are moshing to a heavy drumbeat. The air is hot and wet with their sweat. A scent of rose petals and hashish sweetens it. In a flash of gold, out in the crush, a troupe of bandsmen in braided Sergeant Pepper uniforms are blowing inaudibly into brass instruments, then lifting trumpets and trombones into the air as they dance the dhammal.

Fighting through the crowd, a stream of peasant pilgrims flows into the shrine. Many carry glittering shrouds, lovingly embroidered by a wife or mother, as an offering for the tomb. They will be bestowed with a poor man’s prayer, for a good harvest, debt relief, or a son. “Last year I told my master [Qalandar] that I would bring him a goat if he gave me a son. I have come to honour that promise,” said Muhammad Riaz Rahman, a shopkeeper from Multan, tugging a calm-looking billy, daubed with pink dye, through the crowd.

To orthodox Sufis, all this is absurd. Islam’s mystical strain, like the Jewish and Christian traditions it somewhat resembles, is a strictly delineated path to self-knowledge. The proper Sufi seeks to attain this state through rigorous disciplines, of which dhikr, the remembrance of God, by reciting or meditating on his name, is the most common. Through self-knowledge, the devout mystic strives to attain knowledge of God Himself. This sets Sufis apart from Islam’s other functionaries, its jurists, or mullahs, and its theologians.

Throughout Islamic history, Sufis and mullahs, dedicated to enforcing Koranic laws, have clashed. Mullahs demand obedience; Sufis tend to stress tolerance. In their poetry, which mullahs shudder to read, Sufis often represent the state of rapture that they seek in the language of physical love or drunkenness. “I have no concern but carousing and rapture,” wrote Rumi, Sufism’s greatest poet, whose followers, of the Turkey-based Mawlawi order, remember him in a whirling dance, the saga, which has become synonymous in the West with all Sufism.

Yet—despite what the hordes at Sehwan may believe—orthodox Sufis are also law-abiding Muslims. There should be no contradiction between these two positions. “Sufism is Islam and Islam is Sufism,” says Khwaja Hasan Thani Nizami, the hereditary keeper of the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi. In orthodox Islam, for example, the limits of sainthood are strictly prescribed. Dead Muslim saints cannot intercede with God or perform miracles. If Muslims pray at their shrines, it can only be for the dead man’s salvation. They may not pray to him, which would be shirk, a form of idolatry. According to Ahmed Javed, a bearded Pakistani Sufi and scholar: “You can’t ask a dead saint to mediate, to solve a problem, to fulfil a wish, never, never, never. That is shirk in law and in Sufism.”

But South Asians never have been terribly law-abiding. Nor, during the centuries-old process of Islamisation that they led, have the Sufi orders always insisted that they should be. This really began in the 13th century, soon after the conquest of Delhi by an army of Persian-speaking Afghans. A powerful Sufi order, the Chistis, proceeded to spread across north India, led by Chisti, the great mystic buried in Ajmer.

Chisti’s initiates wore motley, practised poverty, neglected their families and despised the Muslim sultans and emperors who would rule India for five centuries. In the words of a famous Chisti couplet: “Why must you enter the doors of emirs and sultans? You are walking in the steps of Satan!” The Chistis were known for their love of poetry and, especially, music. Pilgrim-poets still gather in the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, another great Chisti saint and poet, in Delhi, wearing the yellow pixie-hats of the order’s initiates.

Under Chisti influence, low-caste Hindus converted to Islam, to escape their low birth. Women, who are everywhere prominent in Sufism, were also especially welcomed. Perhaps most remarkably, the Chistis accepted recalcitrant non-Muslims as Sufi initiates. This set the tone for an astonishingly harmonious cohabitation between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia which continues, though it is sorely tested, to this day.

In the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a great poet of Sindh, musicians gather to sing hymns. As their voices rise, in the blue-tiled portico of the shrine, a line of brightly clad Hindu women traipse in from the Sindhi desert which, for nomads like them, is still an open border to India. The Pakistani Muslim crowd, seated cross-legged on the forecourt, stirs to give them room. The women pass through, to give obeisance to Bhitai’s tomb. It is a moving scene.

For its message of tolerance, Sufism has long been fashionable outside the Muslim world. Outside Philadelphia, amid rolling green hills, is the shrine of Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sri Lankan Sufi saint, who died in America in 1986.

In recent times, moreover, Western interest in Islamic mysticism has become urgent. Some American commentators see Sufis as potential allies in a hostile Muslim world. A report by RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, recommended bolstering Sufism, as an “open, intellectual interpretation of Islam”.

On the face of it, this makes sense. In north-western Pakistan, where the Taliban rule, the Pushtuns have often taken against Sufi saints. According to the 1911 Census of British India, the Afridi tribe, having no shrine to worship at, “induced by generous offers a saint of the most notorious piety to take up his abode among them.” They then slit his throat, buried his corpse, and built a splendid shrine over it. These days, alas, they would probably not build the shrine: the Taliban tend to consider Sufism idolatrous. They are in the same puritan camp as Saudi Arabia’s unforgiving Wahhabi sect, their sometime sponsors. In the land of Muhammad, whom mystics revere as the first Sufi, the Wahhabis have bulldozed many old shrines.

At Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan, a pilgrim called Tanvir Ahmed describes spending four months among the Taliban last year, in Swat, a Taliban fief near the Afghan frontier. He had thought to join the militants. But he was put off by their injunctions against Sufi saints. To a murmur of approval from other devotees, gathering thickly around us, Mr Ahmed says: “No one can deny our respected saints of God.”

But the urs also presents troubling scenes. As dusk falls, and the crowd dancing the dhammal outside the shrine swells, so does an army of men and boys, stripped to the waist. Legs akimbo, they sing a funeral dirge to the Shia martyr Hussain. It describes the battle of Karbala, in which Hussain fell, and Sunni and Shia Muslims were so painfully divided. As their deep voices rise, so the men’s arms lift together. Then each hand slaps down, with a thwack, on its owner’s red and glistening chest.

In daylight, inside the shrine, an even more strikingly sectarian ritual takes place. Shia pilgrims flagellate themselves with chains dangling with knife-blades and cry out to Ali, father of the martyred Hussain, and revered in Shia Islam. As they open their backs, sending blood onto the shrine’s floor, other pilgrims recoil. Many appear disgusted.

In theory, Sufism transcends Islamic sects. For example, Qalandar was a Shia; many—or most—of his devotees are Sunni. Yet the shrines of Sindh, where many Shia Muslims live, are increasingly seeing strident sectarian displays. This may be partly a reaction to the attacks Pakistani Shias increasingly face from fundamentalists like the Taliban. It is a sign of popular Sufism under duress.

Sufi scholars, in Karachi, Delhi and Lahore, are concerned by this. But none wants government help—least of all from a reviled Western government. Many also note that Sufism is not, as Westerners seem to think, uniform. The conservative Naqshbandis, followers of another of South Asia’s main orders, have helped spread jihad: there was a Naqshbandi insurgent group in Iraq.

Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most prominent Sufi saints, was not really of any order. He exists in a tradition of eccentric, mendicant Sufis. He was strongly influenced by Hinduism; many Hindus consider him a manifestation of Shiva. A Hindu performs the opening ritual of the annual urs. During the festival many devotees bring clay dishes of henna to Qalandar’s tomb, as to a Hindu bride on her wedding-night, and spread it on themselves, invoking the name of a Hindu water-god.

Amid syncretism, heresy thrives. Outside Qalandar’s mausoleum, just before dusk, a tall bearded man, wrapped in a black cloak and carrying a silver club, shouts into a loud-hailer: “Ali Allah! Allah Ali!”—“Ali is God! God is Ali!” He is Sayeed Ghafur Ali, a fine-looking dervish, and leader of a sect in Karachi which propagates this fearful blasphemy. In many Muslim places it would cost Mr Ali his head. But in Sehwan no one seems to mind. Asked, in a calmer setting, whether he has been a dervish for long, Mr Ali smiles and removes two tightly-bound parcels, about the size of American footballs, from his trouser pockets. They contain his hair, which grows in thick tresses under his cloak. Mr Ali says he has not visited a barber since he dedicated himself to Qalandar.

Unlike most renowned Sufi saints, Qalandar left little literature. In academic histories, his name hardly appears. To plug the gap, his devotees attribute miracles to him. One tells how Qalandar reconstituted a Hindu disciple, Bodhla Bahar, after an evil raja had made mincemeat of him. The narrator of this story may appear to have been smoking drugs. For Qalandar’s black-clad fakirs, many of whom are full time vagrants, much like Hinduism’s dread-locked saddhus, the urs is a wonderful opportunity to eat, dance and get stoned among friends. “Though I only smoke in the mornings to strengthen the body,” cautions Emir Bux, an elderly itinerant inside the shrine, with an orange hennaed beard and a headdress of curvy wooden snakes.

Sex is also to be had at the urs, but less freely. Sufi shrines have always appealed to prostitutes. This is partly because of the Sufis’ tolerance of sinners, but also because they make good places to sin. At Sehwan, which has a name for licentiousness, a transsexual prostitute—or hijra—called Ghazala says she came from Lahore, with 15 of her eunuch sisters, to pray and dance. Smoking a cigarette down to its filter, Ghazala, a muscular figure with greying temples, claims: “We came here only to worship our saint.” That is an unlikely story.

Presiding over this riot, from a grand house beside the shrine, is Mehdi Shah, a doctor from Islamabad, who recently inherited the title of sajjada nishin, or keeper of the shrine. This is an important office in Pakistan. The wardens of its most important shrines, including some, known as pirs, who claim descent from important saints, are among the country’s biggest landowners. This is partly a legacy of their usefulness to two former invaders of South Asia, the Mughals and British, both of whom patronised the shrine-keepers.

Since the early 1960s, Pakistani governments have been taking over the most lucrative shrines, including Qalandar’s. But Pakistan’s pirs are still formidable. By one estimate, pir politicians command 10% of the popular vote. The current prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and foreign minister, Shah Mahmud Qureshi, are both pirs.

Like so much else in Sehwan Sharif, this tradition has got messy. Mr Shah, the keeper of the shrine, is candid about the responsibilities pir-dom confers: “To guide people and make money.” But he regrets the competition for the office this has engendered. In Sehwan Sharif, several dozen local families claim to be guardians of the shrine. “There may be a thousand Tom, Dick and Harrys claiming to be sajjada nishin,” grumbles Mr Shah.

In a small room next to the shrine, decorated with peacock feathers, one of these wannabes, Paryal Shah, has set up shop. As Mr Shah, a bearded man rattling with amulets, enters the room, pilgrims hurl themselves at his feet. Grunting, occasionally slapping a pilgrim who crushes his toes, Mr Shah dispenses blessings among them. “God will help you,” he growls, doling out white cotton threads, blessed in advance, or a scrap of paper scribbled with a Koranic verse. It is hard to know how seriously anyone takes this charade. Mr Shah’s English-speaking right-hand, Ahmed Bhutto, winks and says that he and Mr Shah’s other disciples practice strict chastity: “I only do it with my wife!”

A more troublesome rival to Mehdi Shah is his uncle, Mozafir Ali Shah. They are locked in a property dispute so ugly that Mehdi Shah refuses even to visit his uncle’s house for a traditional family celebration: a dance performance by a visiting troupe of prostitutes. To the uninitiated, this splendid occasion is not obviously religious. The men of Mozafir Ali’s house sit in proud silence, as prostitutes straddle its courtyard, thrashing their long hair and kissing these hereditary notables’ knees. The women of the house rain rupee notes down on the dancers from a balcony discreetly above. A drummer shouts: “Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar duma dum mast!”

True Sufis are embarrassed by such scenes. At Delhi’s great Sufi shrine, Mr Nizami, the keeper, says a Sufi must have three qualities: knowledge of Islam; love of God; and sanity.

Whatever else they lack, he scoffs, the devotees of Qalandar are insane: “there is no Sufi among them!” Mr Javed, the Sufi in Lahore, agrees. But he contrasts such harmless superstition, as he terms popular Sufi beliefs, with the ruthless literalism of the Taliban. He says: “I feel safe among shallow-minded occultists. I do not feel safe among literalists.”

Scholars like these are Sufism’s true keepers. But in the undergrowth of popular Sufism, it is remarkable how little of their prescriptions survive. It has always been so. The diversity of South Asian Islam is a staggering multicultural achievement. If its mystics, orthodox and popular, are now increasingly besieged by mullahs, fellows of the Taliban, the massive gatherings at Sehwan and other Pakistani shrines suggest they will not be overrun soon.

Moreover, South Asia’s popular Sufism is not all degenerate. Some of South Asia’s greatest artistic achievements, especially in architecture, are expressions of it. The shrine to Baba Hassan Din rising in Lahore is among them.

Mr Qadeer and Mr Niaz, the disciples of Hafiz Iqbal, began work on it a few months after his death. It is being constructed entirely in natural materials, including clay bricks, white marble, gemstones, and lime plaster strengthened, as luck would have it, by the thousands of frogs that perished in it. The craftsmen building the shrine use traditional tools and techniques, some revived especially for the task.

Unsupported by concrete, the shrine’s domes rest on the weight of their own artful construction. Its cloisters are modelled on the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Its bejewelled mosaics are copied from the walls of Delhi’s 17th-century Red Fort. On the walls of the false burial chambers, Koranic verses, chosen by Hafiz Iqbal, have been inscribed in an ink made from burned mustard oil, in a style of calligraphy taken from the Taj Mahal. It is a wonderful creation.

Kamil Khan Mumtaz, the architect, a Sufi initiate himself, believes there has been no Islamic monument built like it, anywhere in the Muslim world, for 300 years. May it last longer.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Tehran: Yalda Night festival will be officially added to Iran's List of National Treasures in a special ceremony to be held on December 20.

The ceremony will be attended by the Vice President in charge of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, and several other cultural figures on Saturday, press tv reported.

Yalda eve, 21st of December, is considered the longest night of the year when ancient Iranians celebrated the birth of Mithra, the goddess of light.

However, it is now considered a time when family members get together at the home of the elders until after midnight.

They are served with dried fruits, nuts, and winter fruits like pomegranates and watermelons, which are said to symbolize the red color of dawn in the sky.

During the long night, they also practice bibliomancy with the poetry of the highly respected mystic Iranian poet, Hafez.

What the great poet Josh Malihabadi said of versifiers who chant their verses at mushairas (gatherings of Urdu poets) in tarannum (chant) applies even more so to qawwali which has been much debased in recent decades.

Gone are the affluent ones who held private mehfils (gatherings) to which a select few were invited to listen to qawwals of distinction. They sat on carpets which facilitated interaction between the qawwals and the audience and among the knowledgeable ones in the audience as well.

In their place has come “the performance” in crowded halls into which anyone can saunter by buying a ticket. The singer has only his own standards to live up to. The audience, particularly in Mumbai, does not expect much. It knows no better. Bollywood, predictably, played a big role in the debasement. Even singers such as Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali compromised with the Mumbai audience. So do some qawwals. Qawwali suffers.

It was very refreshing, therefore, to attend a Sufi and mystic music festival in Mumbai recently at which qawwali was sung in good taste. And the occasion was not unduly marred by the exhibitionism of some members of “Bombay society” whose incapacity for appreciation was vividly reflected in the crudeness of their flamboyant gestures.

There was more than Sufi music from India. Bektashi sufiana songs were sung by Latif Bolat of Turkey.

But the prince of them all was Sheikh Yasin Al Tohamy and his group from Egypt. A monument of dignity, he sang with a devotion that moved even those who did not know Arabic. It was a classic performance by a master of the art, unaffected by a desire to play to the gallery. The festival, an all-India event, is aptly entitled Ruhaniyat (spirituality).

That is the true test of qawwali which Regula Qureshi aptly defines as “the song genre performed at the mahfil-e-sama, the Sufi assembly held for achieving mystical experience”.

The singing group is accompanied by the tabla or dholak and by rhythmic clapping; “the stress-intense” musical metre is played on the tabla or dholak, reinforced by clapping. Sufis identify it with zarb, the heartbeat, which witnesses zikr, repeated innovations of God. To the vulgar, the music and rhythmic clapping suffice for exhibitionist arousal.

Urdu poetry is rich in stylised metaphor. The qawwals sing the mystical poetry of the Sufi masters, which abound in imagery of the cup (paimana), wine (sharab), tavern (maikhana), cupbearer (saqi), the candle (shama), the moth (parwana), the rose (gul) and the nightingale (bulbul), intoxication, sobriety, lover and beloved, yearning for mystical union, and the pain of separation. This is often misunderstood by those unfamiliar with Sufi lore. The vulgar in the audience relish it.

In an essay written two decades ago Regula Qureshi lamented that “the ghazal song of the traditional mahfil is hardly alive today”. The qawwali, however, thrives at dargahs (shrines). It was invigorated by great qawwals such as the Sabri brothers and by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The qawwali in its pristine form continues to be sung at the dargahs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti of Ajmer, Gharib Nawaz (vide the writer’s article “Patron of the poor”, Frontline, June 8, 2001) and of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in New Delhi.

Regula Qureshi’s book, which includes a CD containing an hour of excellent qawwali music, is a pioneering and definitive study on a neglected subject, a work of remarkable erudition. She distinguishes between “the popular version” for entertainment and “the authentic spiritual song that transports the mystic towards union with God”. Qawwali is the central ritual of Sufism.

Its founding father was Hazrat Nizamuddin’s favourite disciple, Amir Khushrau, whose verses and tunes form the core of the ritual to this day. Sama – listening to mystical music – is not free from controversy. Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandiya or the Suhrawardiya prohibit use of musical instruments. There is not an aspect, not a point, however esoteric, that the book ignores.

The Lamp of Love

Amatullah Armstrong Chishti was trained as an art teacher and ran an art restoration business in Sydney. She travelled ceaselessly and embraced Islam in 1984 in the Algerian Sahara desert.

She subsequently entered the Chishti Sufi order and is working with Mehboob Sabri to spread the Sufi message in Pakistan and abroad. Her travels took her to the shrines of all the great Sufi saints in India and Pakistan.

The Sabri brothers have an ancient lineage. The eldest, Ghulam Farid, the “king of qawwals”, died in 1994 followed by Kamal, leaving Maqbook Ahmed and Mehmool Ghaznavi to continue the tradition.

The book is part autobiography and part monograph on Sufism and its famed ritual, qawwali. It is a good supplement to Qureshi’s book.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Lahore: The Pakistan Study Centre History Department and Pakistan Research Society will organise a three-day international conference on ‘History, Politics and Society: The Punjab’ on December 29, 2008.

A press statement issued by the Punjab University History and Pakistan Studies Department said that 39 delegates from United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Russia and India have agreed to attend the conference.

All public sector universities and the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) will send their delegates to attend the conference. The organisers have urged the scholars to write articles related to Punjabi history, culture and society under the British rule.

The topics issued to the scholars for writing include: preparation of reports and gazetteers, economic upliftment under British rule, British impact on Punjabi culture and education, British roots of Punjab’s administrative machinery, working and comparison of Punjab’s civil service, feudal classes under British rule, Pirs and Sufism, Punjabi political climate to make Jinnah an icon, the change of wind in Punjab, Punjabi leadership, and pre-independence and post-independence Punjab.

The Higher Education Commission and the Punjab University will fund the conference.

Islamabad: The Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) will hold a National Writers Conference and International Seminar on Sufism on December 19 and 20.

The theme of the conference is “Literature for Peace” and prominent writers and intellectuals from all over the country will participate in it.

Tariq Shahid, a PAL official, told Daily Times that the inaugural session of the National Writers Conference would be held on December 19 (Friday) at 3pm at the auditorium of the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Islamabad.

He said that Pakistan Academy of Letters Chairman Fakhar Zaman would deliver the keynote address at the inaugural session.

The conference would consist of four sessions, the PAL official said, adding that Ustad Hamid Ali Khan would present Arifana Kalam on the first day of the conference at 8pm. The second session of conference will start on December 20 (Saturday) at 9:30am at the same venue. During the second session of the conference, a seminar titled “Writers Role in the Promotion of the World Peace” would be held. University of Gujrat Vice Chancellor Dr M Nizamuddin would deliver keynote address at the seminar.

The third session of the conference will start at 12pm on the second day with a seminar titled “International Seminar on Sufism”. University of Health Sciences Lahore Vice Chancellor Dr Hussain Mubashir will present keynote address at the seminar.

The third seminar of the conference will be held at 4pm on the second day at the same venue. The theme of the seminar is “Literature for Peace”. AIOU Islamabad Vice Chancellor Dr Mehmoodul Hassan Butt will present keynote address at the seminar.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The similarities between the United States and Saudi Arabia, while not outweighing their differences, are significant - and rooted in their respective political and religious histories of the past three hundred years

Saudi Arabia and the United States are the Odd Couple of the twenty-first century. One a monarchy, the other a democracy. One founded on a restrictive faith, the other a beacon of religious freedom. One blessed by vast petroleum resources, the other cursed by a gargantuan appetite for oil.

Their governments bound to each other by ties of money and armament, yet their populations distrustful of each other’s political designs, angry about violent deeds attributed to the other, and disdainful of their respective faiths.

From a longer view, however, they are strikingly similar countries whose historical trajectories may have been destined to converge.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the interior of Arabia was the wild and unsettled hinterland beyond the old and sophisticated cosmopolitan cultures of the likes of Istanbul and Cairo. The hardship, starkness, and simplicity of life in the heart of the peninsula contrasted sharply with the luxuries available in these imperial urban areas.

In the early 1700s, the interior of what would become the United States of America by century’s end was also wild and unsettled. Colonists living in the small cities on the Atlantic coast looked to London and Paris for culture and sophistication while European faces were seldom seen west of the Appalachian Mountains. The most sophisticated Bostonians and Philadelphians seemed like bumpkins when they traveled to Europe, and settlers on the frontier lived lives no less stark and simple than the bedouin of Najd.

In 1703, two men were born whose teachings would find fertile ground in these remote, scantily populated lands: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and John Wesley.

After an early upbringing in Najd, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab traveled to the rich and historic commercial city of Basra to acquire an education in Islamic law and theology. When he returned to Arabia, he called for a purification of Islamic religious practice and a return to the simple ideals and lifestyle of the early Muslim community (salaf). Political opposition to his reforms caused him to seek refuge with Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of the town of Dir‘iya.

Politically their alliance planted the seed of the Saudi kingdom just as religiously it gave rise to the Wahhabi form of Islam, and more broadly to the current of Salafism that is today often associated with Muslim militancy around the world.

Meanwhile, John Wesley was born near London and educated at Oxford where he led a revivalist “Holy Club” whose members were taunted as “Methodists.” (“Wahhabi” similarly originated as a pejorative term for believers who called themselves “Muwahhidun,” that is, believers in God’s unity or tawhid).

In 1735, John and his brother Charles traveled to the colony of Georgia, leaving their friend George Whitefield behind to advance their revivalist work in England. Though the Wesleys spent only one year in the New World, George Whitefield followed them abroad making seven trans-Atlantic voyages and delivering riveting open-air sermons that touched off the tumultuous revivalist movement known as the Great Awakening.

Wesley died in 1791, a year before Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. His Methodist followers and like-minded Protestant preachers inspired waves of popular revivalism focused on simple living and abstinence from sinful practices -- like drinking alcohol and dancing -- always aware that even the most pious person could deviate from the right path. Their message was enormously influential in the frontier of the American South and Middle West -- and remains so today.

The doctrinal differences between Wahhabism and Methodism are immense, but their followers nevertheless shared certain traits. Both groups endured the charges of their enemies that they were preachers of fanaticism. Both stressed in their daily lives a constant and active adherence to God’s laws as they understood them and a similarly energetic avoidance of practices they considered evil. Both believed that you had to continually show your faith in your actions if you were to merit salvation. And both tirelessly spread their beliefs and practices among others of their faith, Muslims or Christians respectively, both at home and in faraway lands.

Historians of the modern Middle East usually remark that the United States played a negligible role in the region prior to World War II. At a political level (leaving aside the influence of Woodrow Wilson’s advocacy of national self-determination) this is a sound judgment. But it overlooks the religious level, and the massive commitment of American Protestants to missionary work throughout the world.

Originally inspired by the periodic waves of revival that began with George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, tens of thousands of young Americans -- usually educated in the best colleges -- journeyed abroad to spread their faith or demonstrate to others the quality of American Protestant life. The Ottoman Empire and the Persian Gulf were especial areas of American missionary enterprise.

A similar Wahhabi zeal for reviving Islam expressed itself in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- less in missionary activities than in militant action to suppress what Wahhabi preachers deemed idolatrous practices, particularly those connected with Sufism, Shi‘ism, and the veneration of saintly tombs. But in the twentieth century, Wahhabi missionary activities expanded enormously.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia and the United States are today the world’s two principal exporters of religious missionaries.

The techniques, training, and political involvement of the two sorts of missionaries differ in various ways. But both movements draw strength from almost unlimited private financial donations, and from the reluctance of the American and Saudi governments to put limits on such donations. That many Wahhabi and Protestant missionaries see nothing but evil and political subversion in the actions of their counterparts serves to conceal the fundamental similarity of their social and religious roots.

Comparison with what became the cultural heartlands of desert Arabia and frontier America makes this similarity clear.

Europe is largely post-Christian, and Europeans are often dismayed by the importance of evangelical Christianity in American social and political life. In return, evangelical Americans see sinful Europe as a land that is in need of religious revival. In the same way, once great Islamic cities like Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus, Tunis, and Fez are seen by Salafi Muslims as fields for missionary revival more than as sites of original religious inspiration.

This shared history of religious revival and puritanism on the peripheries of the old cultural and imperial centers of Europe and the Middle East sometimes serves as an excuse to ignore imperial history. The United States rejects any connection with British and French imperialism and thus acts as though it has nothing to learn from their historical experiences. Saudi Arabia similarly regards the histories under imperialism of other Middle Eastern states as being irrelevant to its own standing in the region. Neither government wastes much time studying history.

Yet their parallel religious pasts pose problems. No one doubts the depth, sincerity, and political influence of the evangelical communities of the American South and Middle West, though many more-or-less secular Americans on the East and West Coasts complain bitterly about them. No American president can make foreign, much less domestic, policy without taking their views and potential opposition into account. Yet as a country constitutionally committed to separating religion from government, the United States government will never formally endorse or condemn the private and church activities of overseas missionaries and their legion of financial backers at home. Despite its constitution, the United States has been and continues to be a religiously expansive country. Just not at the level of government.

The ruling family of Saudi Arabia is unconstrained by any constitution, but its history of identification with Wahhabism exerts similar constraints. No matter how vocal the complaints that Wahhabi missionaries and Wahhabi-supported institutions coerce fellow Muslims and engage in unsavory political activities, a Saudi king can no more curtail the his subjects’ private financial support for the propagation of their faith than an American president can stop evangelical radio and television ministers from collecting donations to support missionary activity.

Independence from imported oil, the non-stop call of the recent American presidential campaign, was a barely disguised plea to curtail relations with Saudi Arabia, which is indelibly linked in many American minds to the terrorists who carried out the attacks of 9/11. And there is a parallel yearning on the part of many Saudis to see the end of the heavy-handed American imperialism that scared the kingdom into a war with Iraq in 1991, imposed twelve years of fruitless and murderous sanctions on the Iraqi people, invaded a neighboring state at great loss of life, and now supports an Iraqi political system that has little place for the country’s once dominant Sunni minority.

In sum, private Americans -- some but not all -- express suspicion, and even hatred, for Saudi Arabia. Private Saudis – again, some but not all -- feel the same about the United States. Yet their respective governments do not even dream of getting along without one another.

America needs Saudi oil, Saudi money, and Saudi influence in the Muslim world. So say the policy makers. Likewise, Saudi Arabia cannot survive without American arms and American military protection.

Religion focuses much of the mutual bad will. But neither government -- given their complex histories of involvement and compromise with their citizens’ faith traditions -- can forthrightly address this painful source of discord.

Is it possible to visualize evangelical ministers and Wahhabi ulama sitting down together and searching for common ground on the basis of a shared reverence for Jesus Christ? Probably not.
Is it conceivable that a forthright acknowledgement of the religion problem by both governments could lead to an American commitment to reducing Islamophobia in the United States and a modest Saudi relaxation of the existing restrictions on Christian religious observances in the kingdom? This may be within the realm of the possible.

In the meantime, it would well behoove the political and diplomatic community to recognize that the similarities between the United States and Saudi Arabia -- while by no means outweighing their differences -- are significant and deeply rooted in their respective political and religious histories.

Richard Bulliet is Professor of History at Columbia University and author of Islam: The View from the Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization.

On the fourth floor of the Palace of Arts, the exhibition space featuring this year’s Cairo Biennale, I felt something strange.

At 2 pm at the crowded opening, with cameras clicking, the tin laughter and the inescapable fashionparade, I felt serene.

The piece before me, a computer generated installation of three trees, was titled “Dervish.”

I’d met the artist, Jennifer Steinkamp the day before, with curator Kimberli Meyer, who’d suggested she represent the US in the Biennale. We sat together for an interview at the American Embassy headquarters in Garden City. Both Steinkamp and Meyer hail from Los Angeles. It was there that Meyer first saw Steinkamp’s work in 1995 at the Acme Gallery. She’s been following Steinkamp’s work ever since.

Steinkamp’s presentation “Through line” has a notable history. While presenting a work at the Istanbul Biennale in 2003, she attended a Sufi dance performance, also known as the whirling dervishes. Inspired by their movements, she designed a group of computer animated trees whose swaying branches mirror the dancers’ movements.

“They don’t turn all the way around because trees are rooted in the ground. But they’re kind of trees going into a trance and then every couple of minutes they change seasons.”

Indeed they did. Among a venerable hodgepodge of international paintings, installations and sculpture sharing space at the Palace, Steinkamp’s work stood tall, serenely as one might experience from watching the Sufi dancers.

Occupying a room of its own, a set of three trees, projected almost to scale, swayed gracefully. Each leaf turned over itself with delicate timing, and for that moment provided a refuge from the visual traffic I’d crossed through to see it.

“I made this as a homage to the Middle East because the United States was going to war, and I didn’t understand it,” Steinkamp said.

When asked about different receptions to the piece in different locations, she replied, “That’s why I’m putting this here. I thought I want to bring ‘Dervish’ here. It showed in New York, and I wanted to see how people would receive it here.”

“This theme [of peace] started with a piece called ‘Jimmy Carter,’ which was after 9/11, and we were going to war with Afghanistan and I didn’t get it. And you couldn’t say anything against the war, because, you know, everyone was so upset. And if you did say something against the war you were unpatriotic, and siding with the terrorists.

So I decided I wanted to make a work about peace, and decided to name it ‘Jimmy Carter’ because he was a president who stood for peace. It was actually at the same time he was winning the Nobel Peace Prize, so I thought that was a nice coincidence.”

“Carter” is in fact a wall of virtual flowers. Like most of Steinkamp’s work, it is not overtly political; its visual effect strongly abstracted, in contrast to its concrete title.

“I always thought the titles are one of the key things in Jennifer’s work.” Meyer said. “Not everybody chooses to title their work. That’s why I think her work is also linguistically based, not just visually based.”

In light of Steinkamp’s pacifist stance, and outspokenness against the war, I asked her if she found it ironic to be here as a guest of the American Embassy. “I know, it’s funny isn’t it? What am I doing here?” she said with a laugh. “Well, now we have Obama.”

Meyer chimed in. “The great thing about Jennifer’s work is that you can read it in many different ways. It can be very visual and physical, and that’s pretty much the predominant thing. Then if you want to get into it more, if you want to unpack the titles, then you can go with that or not, but it’s optional. ... It’s not a message that pounds you over the head. It’s not completely apolitical, not at all, but you can kind of choose. And it is positive politics, it’s not negative, and I think that’s part of it too.”

In addition to her participation at the Biennale, the curator has also ventured out to see more about what’s happening in other parts of Cairo. She spoke of her interest in building a bridge between Cairo and LA.

“Cairo has the reputation of being the center of filmmaking, certainly in the Middle East, and we do too, so that’s a parallel I thought of from the beginning. There’s also a sort of odd similarity in the climate, and the smog,” Meyer chuckled.

“Cairo also has a reputation for being one of the most liberal cities in the Middle East,” she continued. “And LA, as opposed to New York, kind of has a reputation for being more edgy. We see Cairo as a kind of progressive urban center in the Middle East, and we want to create a sort of dialogue.”

On her experience of Cairo in juxtaposition to her home, Steinkamp concluded, “I think our highways are dreamy now. After getting stuck in traffic here, I can go get stuck in traffic there and think, ‘this is not so bad’.”

Iran's Ministry of Science, Research and Technology is set to pay tribute to the American scholar of Sufism, Professor Carl. W. Ernst.

The North Carolina University professor of religious studies will be awarded the Farabi International Award for his 1996 book on Ruzbihan Baqli, the 12th-century Persian poet. Ernst's book has been translated into Persian twice and is widely used in Iranian universities.

Ernst attended a conference in Iran earlier this month, during which he called for increased academic and cultural cooperation between Iran and the US.

American Mowlavi expert, William Chittick and George Washington University lawyer, Miriam Galston will also be honored during the ceremony.

Carl W. Ernst is an expert in Islamic studies, who has conducted extensive research into Islam and Sufism. His recent book, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World has received several international awards, including the 2004 Bashrahil Prize for Outstanding Cultural Achievement.

The academic work of a UNC religion professor will be honored by the Iranian government

Tehran: Carl Ernst, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, is a scholar of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. He wrote a book about a 12th-century Sufi poet that is widely used in Iranian universities, and he has traveled extensively in the Middle Eastern country.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports that Ernst will accept the Farabi International Award during a ceremony in Iran on Saturday. Recipients are chosen by the Iranian ministry of science, research and technology.

Ernst was in Iran for a conference earlier this month and said he received "an incredibly enthusiastic response" when he made a strong plea for improved academic and cultural relations between Iran and the United States.

Ernst will be honored for his 1996 book on Ruzbihan Baqli, the 12th-century poet born in what is now Iran. The book has twice been translated into Persian.

Two other US academics also will be honored: William Chittick, a religion scholar at the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and Miriam Galston, a lawyer at George Washington University.

The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage continues this January its highly successful series of World Music concerts with the avant-garde flamenco of Diego Amador and the mystical sufi blend of Badila Ensemble.

Director of Arts and Culture Abdulla Salim al Amri says: “We have been impressed by the response of the audience that has filled Al Dhafra Auditorium on every single occasion: a diverse mix of nationalities, ethnicities, ages and social backgrounds, united by love of music from Jazz to Folk to Fusion. They gave standing ovations and demanded encores from such a variety of artists as Liu Fang, Dennys Baptiste and Taksim Trio.”

“With this kind of audience on board we are encouraged to continue bringing to Abu Dhabi the superb artists we have engaged this year, hoping that we make a small contribution to peoples’ understanding of the incredible uniting force that is Music around the world,”he added.

[...]

The Badila Ensemble/ France, India, Pakistan
Enter the world of trans-oriental Sufi groove with this extraordinary intercontinental Ensemble.

Initiated by the French percussionist Bastien Lagatta, Badila is the project of refined fusion between western and eastern soundscapes, where Islamic influences merge with Hindu traditions, Indian rhythms converge with Arab and Persian melodies.

Badila proposes a unifying vision and an open modern dialogue where secret worlds come together in a feast of the imagination for an unforgettable live experience.

New Delhi: Fifty-year-old Kangalini Sufia sings of freedom and God. The wandering minstrel from Bangladesh is a Baul folk musician of the Sufiana tradition - a blend of Bengali baul (village folk music) and the Islamic Sufi music that originated in Persia and subsequently travelled to India.

A follower of Bangladeshi Sufi-baul legend Lalon Fakir, Kangalini was in the capital to perform at the ongoing Delhi International Arts festival with her nine-member band at the Ashok amphitheatre Sunday.

“I am a native of Kushtia district of Bangladesh,” said the frail minstrel, clad in a yellow cotton sari in the traditional Bengali style with a red vermillion mark on the forehead.

She played a two-string instrument (do-tara) and a little wooden hand cymbal as she danced around the podium singing about “man’s desire to be one with the Almighty”.

Kushtia, Kangalini’s hometown in western Bangladesh, is known for its association with Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who stayed at the Kuthibari (a mansion) in the district during his visit to Bangladesh, erstwhile east Bengal. Kushtia is also home to the shrine of Bengali Sufi mystic Lalon Fakir - and the Islamic University.

Kangalini had been initiated into the Sufi-Baul music early in life.

“I have been singing for the last 40 years since I was 14. But I became a full-fledged musician after my brother’s death in the Bangladesh Liberation war in 1971. I took my mother and set out to perform across the country; but my mother eventually died of the pain of losing my brother and my father,” Kangalini told IANS in an interview after her performance.

The musician, who has composed over 500 songs, sang five numbers - three of her own compositions and two by Lalon Fakir. She began the recital with “Hawa dome dekho cheye” a composition by Lalon Fakir, and followed it up with her own songs “Jeevan cholar pothe” and “Matir Gachhe Lau Dorechhe”.

“The Baul-Sufi songs of Bangladesh are more spiritual than those of Bengal because most of them are connected to the Islamic faith and emanate from the Muslim shrines that dot the land,” she said.

“Baul is very popular in Faridpur, Kushtiya and Meherpur districts of Bangladesh,” said Kangalini, who has performed nine times in London, once in the US and recently in Italy.
“Sufi-Baul was a great hit in Italy,” the musician said.

The singer claims to be self-styled. “As a child I used to sing by myself, but as I became professional, I realised that I needed a guru and trained under Halim Bayati and Deven Khaba, two Bangladeshi baul exponents,” Kangalini said.

The Baul-Sufi tradition in Bangaldesh has been immortalised by Lalon Shah (Fakir), a Sufi saint. Most of his songs speak of self-understanding and have inherent messages that people often follow in their own lives.

According to Dhaka-based professor Anwarul Karim, in Bangladesh there is a category of Sufi mystics who travel with folk musical instruments and an alms bag. These dervishes, neither Hindu or Muslims, love music that speaks of the human body as the microcosm and the soul as the elusive bird. Their songs are full of rural analogies.

“The Baul traditions of West Bengal and Bangladesh are different and yet similar. As Bangladesh is a Muslim country, the Baul singers are extremely conscious of the language - it is a monument of language that celebrates life and spirituality. In Bengal, Baul is a bit about nostalgia,” said Ashok Vajpayee, pro-tem chairman of the Lalit Kala Akademi, who felicitated Kangalini and her entourage.

Baul music was declared a Masterpiece of Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2005.

A large number of devotees and followers of the sufi saint will participate in the urs of the spiritual leader of the sub-continent.

The district administration have finalised all necessary arrangements to facilitate the visiting pilgrims while the district police have made tight security arrangements to avoid any untoward incident during the urs.

DCO reviews security for Baba Farid's urs, Muharram: District Coordination Officer (DCO) Mian Zulfiqar Ahmed has directed to make adequate security arrangements to ensure protection of life and property of the people during the month of Muharramul Haram and annual urs of Hazrat Baba Farid Uddin Masood popularly known as Ganj-e-Shakar.

Presiding over a meeting here on Sunday to review the urs and security arrangements for Muharramul Harram, the DCO urged the Ulema and Khateebs to play their due role in maintaining peace, brotherhood and harmony during Muharram and also extend their cooperation to district administration and police in this regard.

He further directed TMAs to make arrangements of lights and cleanliness of the routes of Muharram processions and Majalis places.

Best possible arrangements made for Urs: Ehasan Uddin
The Punjab government is taking practical steps to provide basic facilities to the people of the province. Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Minister Haji Ehsan Uddin Qureshi said this while talking to reporters here on Sunday.

He said that the government has taken various revolutionary measures to improve the working of public sectors departments including education and health. He further said that Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif believes in good governance in the province.

The minister said that certain elements are trying to disturb the political process in the country to achieve their personal interest, adding that they would never be succeeded in their nefarious design.

He said that all necessary arrangements are being made to facilitate the visitors of the shrine of Hazarat Baba Farid Uddin Masood on the occasion of his annual urs.

Islamabad: Dark clouds of animosity and distrust are once again hovering over India and Pakistan, and there is uncertainty about where and how these will lift. Does Sufism hold the answer? Yes, says the Lahore-based Ajoka Theatre Group.

On Sunday, 22 members of the group will leave for India, hoping to take some ions out of the current charged atmosphere between the two countries with their acclaimed play Bullah about the great Sufi saint Bulleh Shah and his message of peace and tolerance.

“We hope in this small way we can help to resume the dialogue for peace between the two countries because finally, dialogue is the only way to end conflict, not war,” said Madeeha Gauhar, a well-known actor who is also Ajoka’s director.

The group is going to India at the invitation of the Sangeet Natak Academy to perform at the International Theatre Festival that begins on December 22 in Thrissur in Kerala.

Bulleh Shah’s early life coincided with the final decades of Mughal rule that witnessed conflict, political chaos and civil and religious strife, especially between Sikhs and Muslims.

Through his verses, Bullah, as he is popularly known, called for tolerance and love in an atmosphere of hatred and bigotism, urging people to respect each other’s religious beliefs. At every turn, he challenged Islamic orthodoxy for which he was branded an infidel and attracted several fatwas.

Main attraction
The legend goes that when Bullah died, the mullahs of his native Kasur, now in Pakistan’s Punjab province, refused to allow him to be buried in the city graveyard. He was buried outside, but his followers turned it into a shrine that is even today Kasur’s main attraction, bringing together tens of thousands of Muslim, Sikh and Hindu pilgrims for an annual urs in August.

Bullah’s verses have been set to music by many singers, and have a following across the world for its humanism and compassion.

A tribute
The play Bullah is a tribute to this famous mystic, and is based on the events of his life, through his poetry, historical records and legend. But his search for truth, his conflict with the intolerant clergy and corrupt rulers, his opposition to war and bloodshed in the name of religion, which are presented powerfully in the play, have a contemporary resonance.

More relevant
This is not the first time that Ajoka is staging Bullah in India. It has been shown in Delhi, Punjab and Jammu. The invitation to the festival in Kerala came much before the Mumbai attacks, but according to Ms. Gauhar, the fallout makes the message of the play all the more important and relevant.

“Our experience with Bullah is that wherever in India or Pakistan we have taken it, the message of love and harmony and peace of Bulleh Shah and of Sufism in general has found an instant response among audiences,” said Ms. Gauhar.

It will also help to keep alive the people-to-people contacts , which Ms. Gauhar said, are “vital” in the present situation.

AR Rahman and music are synonymous. The mellifluous magic that the maestro composes enchants the very being of listeners across the world.

His soulful music is a balm in these chaotic times, when India wreathes in pain after repeated terror attacks on its integrity and bloodbath in the name of region and religion.

And now he has won the prestigious Golden Globe nomination for his compositions for the internationally acclaimed ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ In an exclusive interview to Spicezee.com’s Swati Chaturvedi in ‘Kahiye Janaab’, AR Rahman shares his views on these turbulent times, his music and much more.

Swati: Being an artist, you are all the more sensitive to the problems that are plaguing the nation. What is your reaction to the terror attacks in Mumbai?
Rahman: I was completely devastated. The whole week was very bad. I had to finish a film. I finished the film and left for America. I was going through stress and extreme sadness. It took me almost a week to return back to my normal self.

Swati: Are you sad or angry after the attacks?
Rahman: Both. I am angry because it is inhuman to take lives. People who are responsible for our protection (read politicians) should not only inform and alert everyone, but also provide proper security. Rich or poor, every human being is entitled to proper security against such attacks. The good thing is that people are mature, they understand the problem and are not getting involved in the blame game. People are trying to tackle the problem intellectually. It’s important for educated masses to understand and work towards preventing such terror acts in the future.

Swati: You feel that the country is developing but do you think, somewhere the politicians are holding back the nation?Rahman: No. India is a young country. Indians are strong and are progressing. Nobody can hold us back. I firmly believe that Indians are sensible and spiritual. Of late, the understanding has become better. We know what is true and what is false.

Swati: Your good friend Aamir Khan refrained from celebrating Eid. Did you celebrate Eid?
Rahman: No Eid this time. Even my wife called up and said that she doesn’t feel like celebrating Eid. There was so much sadness everywhere.

Swati: Of late, Islam is being labeled. What is the message of Islam for you?
Rahman: I became spiritual because of Sufism and it is a universal phenomenon. Sufism has followers from all religion. Because of Sufism, I have got success. India is a blessed place; even the Prophet has said this. Religion should not be labeled. Education is the message of Islam. Everyone should get proper education so that they gain wisdom.

Swati: How much does the political situation in the country affect your music?
Rahman: It actually kind of exhausted my energy. I had to take a break. I was in shock last week, but music is my medicine. Music transports and heals you. I feel that I am blessed and I want to share the same feeling with others. That’s why I don’t take hiatus from work because it is work that rejuvenates me. It is great to give something as beautiful as music to others.

Swati: Your song ‘Rubaru’ was very well received. Please tell us about it.
Rahman: ‘Rubaru’ means light and it is relevant in these dark days. Right now, there is so much confusion, negative feelings and anger. As an artist, what you can give is love and free hugs.

Swati: You have got stupendous success as a music composer. Which is personally your favourite album?
Rahman: My latest Nokia Connections album gave me a lot of creative freedom. I did what I wanted to do. The song collection in the album is diverse. There are songs, which have never been done before. I have used a different style. The internal feedback that I have received is very good. Let’s see what people have to say about it. The compositions include a song from old Tamil literature, a love song - Jiah se Jiah, Punjabi song – Dil and other tracks.

Swati: Your music is becoming more meditative with age. Your take on this…
Rahman: I became old when I was 12 due to the circumstances in my family. May be I am getting younger now.

Swati: What is your inspiration while composing a romantic song?
Rahman: Love is definitely a phenomenon that transports you into a different world. Love is such a feeling that is beautiful. Even if a person is coming to murder you, love can change that person.

The interview ended on such a ‘lovely’ note, the maestro even crooned ‘Jiah se Jiah’ love song.

Hyderabad: The Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation has established an FM Radio Station at Bhitshah town on the directives of the government to promote the poetry of great Sufi Saint Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai and spread his message of mysticism based on love, peace, affection and brotherhood.

The radio station has started functioning after its inauguration by Sindh Minister for Culture and Tourism Sussui Paleejo.

Besides the FM radio, the Sindh Culture Department has planned to organise an international conference on Hazrat Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai on the eve of his annual Urs celebrations, the minister said while addressing the inaugural ceremony.

She said the department will also establish the Shah Abdul Latif Research Cell in Bhitshah with the objective of spreading the universal message of the great Sufi saint in the entire world.

Sussui Paleejo said that the department had also prepared a comprehensive plan under which a website on Shah Latifís poetry will be developed so that the people around the world could know about his preaching.

She said the upgrading of the Bhitshah Library, Rest House and beautification of Bhitshah Town along with its Karar Lake have also been made part of this scheme. She added that Bhitshah town will give the look of a developed town of the province by the end of 2009.

She said implementation of the scheme of Bhitshah Radio Station was a great achievement of the PPP government and termed it as a gift for the people of Sindh.

Music can be found in every walk of life. If we only care to listen carefully as we breathe in and out, we will be able to hear rhythm in the beating of our hearts. All religions have made music a part of worship. One such form of music is Sufi music.

From the ancient times, music has played an important role in people’s lives. After the day’s hard work most of us like to spend our leisure, listening to the music. It refreshes and relaxes our mind.

Without music life would have stopped after a certain point of time. It is music that soothes the heart and soul. Music can be found in every walk of life. If we only care to listen carefully as we breathe in and out, we will be able to hear rhythm in the beat of our hearts. It is inspired by the beauties around the world.

In the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan, a 19th century Sufi teacher, “The art of music is especially divine, because it is the exact miniature of the laws working within the whole universe. Music inspires not only the soul of great musicians, but also the infant who begins to move to the rhythm of music as soon as s/he steps out into the world.”

All religions have made music a part of worship. One such form of music is Sufi music. Sufism claims to be the reality of religion in Islam, which encompasses a diverse range of beliefs and practises to the divine love - God.

The followers of Sufism are known as Sufis who especially love music calling it as Ghiza-i-ruh, which means “food of the soul”.

The word Sufi originates from Suf, the Arabic word which means wool. Suf refers to the simple cloaks that the early ascetics used to wore. According to another theory, the root word of Sufi is the Arabic word Safa which means purity. Thus this theory placed the concept of Sufism on purity of thought, heart and soul.

The great Sufi masters have defined Sufism as a type of knowledge. Sheikh Ahmad Zarraq, a 15th century Sufi, defined Sufism as, “A science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God,” in his The Principles of Sufism. Ibn Ajiba, one of the best known Sufi masters, defined Sufism as, “A science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of Divine, purify one’s inward from filth and beautify it with praiseworthy traits.”

Notwithstanding its different definitions, Sufism remains a pure form of worship that transcends the barriers of religion even though it originated in one, namely Islam. Most importantly, it celebrates life and the Divine through one medium that each and everyone of us understand - Music. Music is the sole basis of Sufism.

Dhikr, a devotional act which means the remembrance of God is commanded in The Koran; is followed by many Sufi traditions, while orthodox Islam looks down on music.

Many Sufi traditions seek to utilise its emotive and communal power towards the goal of Dhikr. Sama is one of the central forms of group Dhikr. Literally, Sama means listening but it also has the connotation of a spiritual concert of sacred music, which is often blended with dance.

Rock music is also rooted in the trend of Sufi music. The sound of the famous Pakistani rock band Junoon can be termed as “Sufi Rock”. In 1993, Nadeem F Paracha claims to have coined the term to define Junoon’s then pioneering process of fusing conventional rock music with sub-continental Sufi music and imagery.

“Today, like every other day, we woke up empty and frightened,” noted the great Sufi mystic Jalauddin Rumi in the 13th century. “Don’t open the door to study and begin reading. Instead, take down a musical instrument; let the beauty we love be what we do,” wrote he.

By Farhad Shakely, "The Naqshbandi shaikhs of Hawraman and the heritage of Khalidiyya-Mujaddidiyya in Kurdistan Part II" - The Kurdish Globe - Erbil, Kurdistan, Iraq
Thursday, December 18, 2008

The Siraj ad-Dini Shaikhs
The Siraj ad-Dini sheiks have been the most prominent representatives of the Khalidi suborder in Kurdistan since the time Mawlana Khalid left Kurdistan for Damascus at the end of 1237 A. H./autumn, 1822.

Indeed Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din I (1195/1781-1283/1867) was the most important figure among Mawlana Khalid's disciples even at a time when Mawlana was still living in Kurdistan and/or in Baghdad. The two men knew each other as students of Islamic sciences (faqê in Kurdish), and they met once again in Baghdad in 1226/1811 when Mawlana stayed in the mosque of Shaikh Abd al-Qadir al-Gaylani five months, shortly after his return from India to Sulaimanî.

It was then that Faqê Uthman, who afterwards was known as Siraj ad-Din I, was initiated to the path by Mawlana. After two years of spiritual training, he was the first person to become a khalifa (deputy) of Mawlana on the whole. He was then thirty three years old.

Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din was born in Tawêla, in Hawraman region, near Halabja. According to many sources his parents were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad. The family, thus, is a Sayyid family. But the Siraj ad-Dini Shaikhs never claimed being Sayyids. Shaikh Uthman signed his letters with his own name followed by al-Khalidi al-Mujaddidi an-Naqshbandi.

Shaikh Uthman accompanied his preceptor during the years in which Mawlana was twice obliged to leave Sulaimani for Baghdad. In Sulaimani Shaikh 'Uthman usually substitued for Mawlana in the khatm assemblies. The disciples were instructed by Mawlana to attend Uthman's khatm circles. Among these were outstanding names like Sayyid Isma'il Daghistani, Mulla Abd al-Hakim Kashghari and Shaikh Muhammad of Halabja.

Apparently Mawlana Khalid, who had much organisational ability, was preparing his disciple to succeed him and to take the difficult and crucial responcibility of spreading the order in Kurdistan.

When Mawlana left Sulaimani for Baghdad for the last time in 1820, Shaikh Uthman did not follow him. He moved, instead, to his home region, Hawraman, and began to establish a strong base for the order, which became one of the most important centres for the Khalidi suborder in the whole Middle East and continued to be such untill the fifties of the present century. This centre not only contributed greatly in spreading the sufi teachings of the Naqshbandi order, but also produced a number of poets whose poems are examples of the most significant and marvellous sufi poetry as a whole.

This indispensable position of Siraj ad-Din for Mawlana and for the order, becomes more clear when we know that during the summer months of 1236/1821 and 1237/1822 Mawlana left the heat of Baghdad for the summer resorts of Hawraman where he met Siraj ad-Din and supervised the Naqshbandi networks in Kurdistan. Shaikh Uthman also visited Mawlana in Baghdad, at least once, during this period.

It was from Kurdistan, not from Baghdad, as it is commonly, but wrongly, accepted in the sources about the Khalidi suborder, that Mawlana Khalid went to Damascus.

After leaving Sulaimânî in 1236/1822, Mawlana was represented in his Sulaimani khanaqa by Shaikh Abdullah Hirati (d. 1245/1839-40), who was assisted by Shaikh Muhammad Sahib (d.1283/1866), the brother of Mawlana. When Mawlana died in 1242/1827 Hirati, and a short time later also Sahib, left for Damascus. A few years later, in 1254/1838 the Baban Ahmad Pasha invited Shaikh Uthman to be in charge of the Khalidi khanaqa in Sulaimani. The Shaikh accepted the task and supervised the khanaqa, but he did not abandon Hawraman, to where he returned often.

With the exception of those two years, Shaikh Uthman lived in Tawêla and Biyara, in Hawraman, from 1236/1820, the year Mawlana left Sulaimani for Baghdad, until his death, i.e. Shaikh Uthman's death, in 1283/1867. In nearly half a century he was the most prominent khalifa of Mawlana Khalid in Hawraman and Baban regions.

The Shaikh had a great number of khalîfas and mansûbs /deputies and affiliates from different regions in Kurdistan and the Middle East. In his hagiography about Mawlana Khalid and the Naqshbandi Shaikhs of Hawraman, Malâ 'Abd al-Karîm-î Mudarris enumerates 96 khaiîfas and 33 mansubs of Shaikh Uthman. Among them we find many great 'ulama and poets but also two powerful rulers; Ahmad Pasha of Baban and Rizaquli Khan of Sina (Sanadaj) in Ardalan.

This is contrary to what many researchers inferred, that the Naqshbandiyya was only an assembly for opposition sects in the Kurdish soceity.

In addition to his letters there are a few lines of poetry and ten advisory articles by Shaikh Uthman, in which he instructes his disciples in the issues of the order. In one of these articles, dated 1272/1856, he appoints his sons Muhammad Baha' ad-Din and Abd ar-Rahman as his deputies and successors and advises his followers to obey them.

Shaikh Uthman Siraj ad-Din I was succeeded in turn by five Shaikhs in his family. But it should be indicated also that other members of the family have been in charge of the path in different periods, with own disciples and khanaqas.

He was succeeded directly by his son Shaikh Muhammad Baha' ad-Din (1252/1837 -1298/1881).

Although in his testament, Siraj ad-Din had appointed two of his sons; Baha' ad-Din and Abd ar-Rahman Abu al-Wafa (1253/1837-1285/1868) to be his successors, but apart from a very short time, Shaikh Abd ar-Rahman declined the position and resided in Baghdad.

He was a creating poet. The small amount of poems to which we have access today, some 70 poems in Persian, mostly ghazals, indicates his talent as a sufi poet. Baha' ad-Din also was a poet, although only a few of his poems are extant.

The third Shaikh in the Siraj ad-Din silsila (initiating chain) was Shaikh Umar Zhia' ad-Din (1255/1839-1318/1901). He was distiguished from his predecessors in some aspects. It was in his time as a Shaikh that dhikr-i jahr (vocal remembrance) was practised besides dhikr-i khafi (silent remembrance). He was known for his enthusiasm for science and education, and for culture as a whole. He built several new khanaqas in Khanaqin, Kifri, Qizrabat, Biyara, Tawêla and Sardasht. He was a brilliant poet in Kurdish, Persian and Arabic. In his poems he used "Fawzî" as his takhallus (pen name).

We have access also to some fifty letters written by him to his deputies or to the great men of his time, among whom we find the Qajari Shah Muzaffar ad-Din (reigned 1896-1907) and the Ottoman Sultan Abd al-Hamid II (reigned 1876-1909). There are, moreover, three treatises on sufi teachings.

A remarkable feature in the life of Shaikh Umar Ziya' ad-Din was his good relation to the Qadiri Shaikhs and their disciples and followers, which will be dealt with later.

The immediate successor in the chain was his son Shaikh Najm ad-Din (1280/1863-1337/1918) who was known for his zuhd (renunciation). The Ottomans wanted to give him a monthly salary to use it for the Khanaqa and its visitors, but the Shaikh rejected the offer.

He had great interest in intellectual conversations with the scholars who so often visited the khanaqah in Biyâra. He was a poet, but the number of the poems available to us is very small.

Shaikh Najm ad-Din was succeded by his brother Shaikh Muhammad Ala' ad-Din (1280/1863-1373/1954). He wrote a treatise in Arabic entitled Tibb al-Qulub (Healing the hearts) which contains advices and recommendations. He was a well-known phisician who helped thousands of people in the region and he prescribed them herbal medicine.

When Shaikh Ala' ad-Din died in 1954 he was succeeded by his son Shaikh Muhammad Uthman Siraj ad-Din II (1314/1896-1417/1997), who was already a well-known and established sufi leader. Shaikh Uthman II was deeply learned in Islamic theology as well as in Kurdish and Persian poetry. He was moreover a skillful phisician with wide knowledge of herbal medicine.

When the monarchy in Iraq was overthrown by General Abd al-Karim Qasim, Shaikh Uthman left Iraqi Kurdistan in 1959 and resided in Iranian Kurdistan about two decades. After the Iranian revolution he came back to Hawraman, Iraqi Kurdistan, but he soon left it for Baghdad.

He spent the last seven/eight years of his life in Istanbul, where he died on 30 January, 1997. He was buried inside his residence, close to the khanaqa in Istanbul.

Shaikh Uthman was also a poet; two volumes of his poems, in Kurdish and Persian, are published, as well as a volume of his treatises and letters entitled Siraj al-Qulub "Lantern of Hearts" of which an English translation is also published.

Shaikh Uthman died almost simultaneously; as his brother Shaikh Mawlana Khalid, also a sufi leader, in Sanadaj, Iranian Kurdistan. No one of them knew, at least outwardly, about the death of his brother, and thus a great wish of their lives was fulfilled. Both had wished that he may never experience (the usual Kurdish expression here is not to see) the death of his brother. In tens of poems and hundreds of letters that were coming and going between them in the span of the last 70-80 years, they expressed that wish time and again. This was one of the last wondrous deeds (karamat) so often attributed to them throughout their lives. Shaikh Uthmân was 101 years old when he died and Shaikh Khalid was 99.

Shaikh Uthman was named after his great-gradnfather Uthman Siraj ad-Dîn I and Shaikh Khalid was named after Mawlana Khalid.

The role of the Naqshbandi Shaikhs of Hawraman in spreading and establishing the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya-Khalidiyya in Kurdistan and in parts of the Middle-East is of central importance. It was under the guidance of them and their deputies that the order reached most of the regions in Iraqi and Iranian Kurdistan, Turkman Sahra in Iran, Northern Syria, Lebanon and Bosnia.

Nevertheless, they still identify themselves as Khalidis and Mujaddidis, and never invented, or claimed to have invented, a new sub-order.

A ceremony was held on Wednesday in the city of Konya to mark the 735th anniversary of the death of Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi, with politicians giving messages of unity, fraternity and peace

Konya: The ceremony was attended by many Turkish politicians, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertuğrul Günay, who stressed the importance of dialogue, tolerance, fraternity, peace and unity in their speeches.

The ceremony was held on the occasion of the 735th anniversary of the death of Mevlana, a Sufi saint and founder of the Mevlevi order of Sufi dervishes. Called Şeb-i Arus (the Night of Union), it is not a day of mourning but a day of celebration. Mevlana is most famous in the world for his “Mesnevi” (The Couplets), written originally in Persian.

Prime Minister Erdoğan said Mevlana is a source of pride for everyone. “Today is not the anniversary of the death of Mevlana. It is his day of ‘second birth.’ He regarded death as a re-birth,” Erdoğan noted.

He also expressed being disturbed by the association of Islam with terror in Western countries.

“Mosques, churches and synagogues have for centuries existed side-by-side on this land. Those who are trying to associate Islam with terror today cannot turn a blind eye to this fact. Those who discriminate against others due to language, religion or race cannot deny the Islamic tolerance of difference. I call on those who spread Islamophobia and those who associate Islam with terror to read the books of Mevlana,” he stated.

Erdoğan indicated that the world is now in need of Mevlana’s philosophy more than ever.

“People who are trying to shape today’s world with bombs and tanks bring nothing to humanity other than blood and tears. Understanding based on force and violence cause deep splits between civilizations and cultures. They sow seeds of hatred in the hearts of people. Such an understanding that does not allow others the right to exist have to change and renew,” he stated.
Baykal said the fire of Mevlana has warmed the souls of people for 735 years.

“Thousands of people in various countries gather around Mevlana through associations. Mevlana is highly respected by representatives of other religions as well; however, there are people who are attempting to slander Islam through terror and violence. The power to stand against these people is Mevlana, with his affection and tolerance towards all humanity,” he noted.

Baykal also expressed the opinion that Turkey is the place where Islam prevails in the most free, advanced and rational manner.

Günay also delivered a speech at the event and said the world needs Mevlana’s messages of peace.

“It is a great thing to see that the love and respect for Mevlana has continued to increase over the years. The differences between ethnicities and beliefs disappear before the unity and beauty of all the creatures of the creator. Mevlana illuminates the path of feelings and ideas we need today,” he noted.

The Islam of the Taliban is far removed from the popular Sufism practised by most South Asian Muslims

“Normally, we cannot know God,” says Rizwan Qadeer, a neat and amiable inhabitant of Lahore, Western-dressed and American-educated, eyes shining behind his spectacles. “But our saints, they have that knowledge.”

Mr Qadeer is standing in the belly of a shrine that he is building to a modern gnostic, Hafiz Iqbal, whom he venerates especially. Cool, and smelling pleasantly of damp earth and mortar, it holds Iqbal’s grave, covered by an embroidered green shroud and sprinkled with pink rose petals. A young man—a Pakistani resident of London, Mr Qadeer says—stands in silent prayer to the saint, who was employed by Lahore’s municipal government as a street-sweeper, and died in 2001.

In a tradition of popular Sufism, which mingles classical Islamic mysticism with Hinduism and folk beliefs and is a dominant feature of Islam in South Asia, the saint’s divine essence, or baraka, emanates from his tomb. “Physically, our holy saints do die,” says Mr Qadeer. “But the spirit is still here, because they have reached eternity.”

Echoing down a winding stairwell, a scraping of masonry and clink of chisel on marble signal a remarkable monument rising. It is in the scruffy Lahori suburb of Baghbanpura, where Iqbal lived for six decades. From a narrow alley running alongside the shrine, it is mostly hidden: its high outer walls, of recessed brickwork speckled with multicoloured tiles, rising out of sight to a pair of domes and skinny minarets. A few steep steps lead into a small cloistered forecourt, where masons are at work.

Either side of the forecourt, about ten metres apart, are two false burial chambers. These are beautifully decorated, with white marble lattice and marble mosaics studded with green jade, lapis lazuli and agate. One is for Iqbal and the other for his mentor, a mystic called Baba Hassan Din, who lived in a brick cell on this site and died in 1968. The men’s true graves lie underneath, in brick-walled chambers, faintly murmuring with the sounds of the street outside.

According to Mr Qadeer—who had it from Iqbal—Din was, unbeknown to many of his disciples, an Englishman from Birmingham who, early in the last century, abandoned his family and his job on the railways to become a Sufi ascetic. His real name was Alfred, or possibly Albert, Victor. He received his vocation one fine summer evening, in a visitation from Abu Hassan Ali Hujwiri, an 11th-century Persian saint, who is better known as Data Ganj Bakhsh.

In the 1950s, according to Mr Qadeer, Din arrived in Lahore, and passed himself off as a Punjabi. He also adopted a poor local boy, Iqbal, and raised him to be a scholar. According to Mr Qadeer, Iqbal earned several degrees from Government College University, Lahore—one of Pakistan’s finest. But in the early 1960s he embarked on his own spiritual training: taking a job as a sweeper, under an assumed Christian identity. He could not have sunk lower. In the Hindu caste system, which is still discernible in Muslim Pakistan, many generations after its inhabitants converted from Hinduism, street-sweeping is a profession for “untouchables”. Most Christians in Pakistan and India were originally members of that despised Hindu group.

Mr Qadeer, a well-to-do, secular Pakistani, who studied engineering at the University of Houston, became a follower of Iqbal in 1990. He was referred to him in a state of anguish, which he credits the saint, an irascible chain-smoker, with ending. He also believes Iqbal cured his young daughter of a rare intestinal ailment. Other disciples of Iqbal attribute miracles to him, including curing cancer. They say he was omniscient. They believe that, as the height of Sufi attainment, Iqbal knew God.

The stringent, legalistic creeds of the Taliban and other revivalists are on the rise in South Asia, but only a minority follow them. Most of the 450m Muslims in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh—nearly a third of the Islamic world—practise a gentler, more tolerant faith, in which pre-Islamic superstitions are still evident. It is strongly influenced by Sufism, an esoteric and, in theory, nonsectarian Muslim tradition, which is strictly followed by a much smaller number of disciplined initiates. In its popular form, Sufism is expressed mainly through the veneration of saints, including self-styled mystics like those in Lahore, canonised by their followers.

South Asia is littered with the tombs of those saints. They include great medieval monuments, like the 13th-century shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, founder of South Asia’s pre-eminent Sufi order, in Ajmer. But for every famous grave, there are thousands of roadside shrines, jutting into Delhi’s streets, or sprinkled across the craggy deserts of southern Pakistan. On a single hillside in Pakistan’s province of Punjab, outside the town of Thatta, legend has it that 125,000 Muslim saints are buried.

Pakistan’s southernmost state of Sindh, a vast desert bisected by the Indus river, is perhaps best known for its shrines. A few miles outside the city of Hyderabad, in sight of the Indus, a middle-aged dwarf called Subhan manages one of them. She found the shrine deserted a few years ago, and moved into it. It is a small shack, with a low doorway hung with cowbells, in the tradition of a Hindu temple. A dusty green shroud covers the grave. Incense burns at its foot. Subhan says it holds the dust of a medieval saint called Haji Pir Marad. Sometimes, she says, he wrestles with the Indus to prevent it from changing course. In fits of terrible rage, he has caused pileups on the road. She advises passing motorists to propitiate the saint with a modest gift of rupees. On a good day, she collects around 50 rupees (60 cents) from the travellers who stop to pray.

All the traffic, on that recent sunny day, was bound for the nearby town of Sehwan Sharif, where Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most prominent Sufi saints, is entombed. It was the 734th anniversary of his death, an event marked by an annual festival attended by several hundred thousand devotees. This event is known as Qalandar’s urs, or wedding-night, to signify his union with God. A three-day orgy of music, dancing and intoxication, literally and spiritually, the urs at Sehwan is one of the best parties in Pakistan, or anywhere.

Outside Qalandar’s shrine, a white marble monument, decorated with flashing neon, pilgrims work themselves into an all-night ecstasy. Tossing their long black hair, a dozen prostitutes from Karachi or Lahore have a place reserved by the shrine’s golden doorway, to dance a furious jig. It is the dhammal, a rhythmic skipping from foot to foot, for which Qalandar’s followers are well-known. Thousands are moshing to a heavy drumbeat. The air is hot and wet with their sweat. A scent of rose petals and hashish sweetens it. In a flash of gold, out in the crush, a troupe of bandsmen in braided Sergeant Pepper uniforms are blowing inaudibly into brass instruments, then lifting trumpets and trombones into the air as they dance the dhammal.

Fighting through the crowd, a stream of peasant pilgrims flows into the shrine. Many carry glittering shrouds, lovingly embroidered by a wife or mother, as an offering for the tomb. They will be bestowed with a poor man’s prayer, for a good harvest, debt relief, or a son. “Last year I told my master [Qalandar] that I would bring him a goat if he gave me a son. I have come to honour that promise,” said Muhammad Riaz Rahman, a shopkeeper from Multan, tugging a calm-looking billy, daubed with pink dye, through the crowd.

To orthodox Sufis, all this is absurd. Islam’s mystical strain, like the Jewish and Christian traditions it somewhat resembles, is a strictly delineated path to self-knowledge. The proper Sufi seeks to attain this state through rigorous disciplines, of which dhikr, the remembrance of God, by reciting or meditating on his name, is the most common. Through self-knowledge, the devout mystic strives to attain knowledge of God Himself. This sets Sufis apart from Islam’s other functionaries, its jurists, or mullahs, and its theologians.

Throughout Islamic history, Sufis and mullahs, dedicated to enforcing Koranic laws, have clashed. Mullahs demand obedience; Sufis tend to stress tolerance. In their poetry, which mullahs shudder to read, Sufis often represent the state of rapture that they seek in the language of physical love or drunkenness. “I have no concern but carousing and rapture,” wrote Rumi, Sufism’s greatest poet, whose followers, of the Turkey-based Mawlawi order, remember him in a whirling dance, the saga, which has become synonymous in the West with all Sufism.

Yet—despite what the hordes at Sehwan may believe—orthodox Sufis are also law-abiding Muslims. There should be no contradiction between these two positions. “Sufism is Islam and Islam is Sufism,” says Khwaja Hasan Thani Nizami, the hereditary keeper of the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya in Delhi. In orthodox Islam, for example, the limits of sainthood are strictly prescribed. Dead Muslim saints cannot intercede with God or perform miracles. If Muslims pray at their shrines, it can only be for the dead man’s salvation. They may not pray to him, which would be shirk, a form of idolatry. According to Ahmed Javed, a bearded Pakistani Sufi and scholar: “You can’t ask a dead saint to mediate, to solve a problem, to fulfil a wish, never, never, never. That is shirk in law and in Sufism.”

But South Asians never have been terribly law-abiding. Nor, during the centuries-old process of Islamisation that they led, have the Sufi orders always insisted that they should be. This really began in the 13th century, soon after the conquest of Delhi by an army of Persian-speaking Afghans. A powerful Sufi order, the Chistis, proceeded to spread across north India, led by Chisti, the great mystic buried in Ajmer.

Chisti’s initiates wore motley, practised poverty, neglected their families and despised the Muslim sultans and emperors who would rule India for five centuries. In the words of a famous Chisti couplet: “Why must you enter the doors of emirs and sultans? You are walking in the steps of Satan!” The Chistis were known for their love of poetry and, especially, music. Pilgrim-poets still gather in the shrine of Nizamuddin Auliya, another great Chisti saint and poet, in Delhi, wearing the yellow pixie-hats of the order’s initiates.

Under Chisti influence, low-caste Hindus converted to Islam, to escape their low birth. Women, who are everywhere prominent in Sufism, were also especially welcomed. Perhaps most remarkably, the Chistis accepted recalcitrant non-Muslims as Sufi initiates. This set the tone for an astonishingly harmonious cohabitation between Hindus and Muslims in South Asia which continues, though it is sorely tested, to this day.

In the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a great poet of Sindh, musicians gather to sing hymns. As their voices rise, in the blue-tiled portico of the shrine, a line of brightly clad Hindu women traipse in from the Sindhi desert which, for nomads like them, is still an open border to India. The Pakistani Muslim crowd, seated cross-legged on the forecourt, stirs to give them room. The women pass through, to give obeisance to Bhitai’s tomb. It is a moving scene.

For its message of tolerance, Sufism has long been fashionable outside the Muslim world. Outside Philadelphia, amid rolling green hills, is the shrine of Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sri Lankan Sufi saint, who died in America in 1986.

In recent times, moreover, Western interest in Islamic mysticism has become urgent. Some American commentators see Sufis as potential allies in a hostile Muslim world. A report by RAND Corporation, an American think-tank, recommended bolstering Sufism, as an “open, intellectual interpretation of Islam”.

On the face of it, this makes sense. In north-western Pakistan, where the Taliban rule, the Pushtuns have often taken against Sufi saints. According to the 1911 Census of British India, the Afridi tribe, having no shrine to worship at, “induced by generous offers a saint of the most notorious piety to take up his abode among them.” They then slit his throat, buried his corpse, and built a splendid shrine over it. These days, alas, they would probably not build the shrine: the Taliban tend to consider Sufism idolatrous. They are in the same puritan camp as Saudi Arabia’s unforgiving Wahhabi sect, their sometime sponsors. In the land of Muhammad, whom mystics revere as the first Sufi, the Wahhabis have bulldozed many old shrines.

At Qalandar’s shrine in Sehwan, a pilgrim called Tanvir Ahmed describes spending four months among the Taliban last year, in Swat, a Taliban fief near the Afghan frontier. He had thought to join the militants. But he was put off by their injunctions against Sufi saints. To a murmur of approval from other devotees, gathering thickly around us, Mr Ahmed says: “No one can deny our respected saints of God.”

But the urs also presents troubling scenes. As dusk falls, and the crowd dancing the dhammal outside the shrine swells, so does an army of men and boys, stripped to the waist. Legs akimbo, they sing a funeral dirge to the Shia martyr Hussain. It describes the battle of Karbala, in which Hussain fell, and Sunni and Shia Muslims were so painfully divided. As their deep voices rise, so the men’s arms lift together. Then each hand slaps down, with a thwack, on its owner’s red and glistening chest.

In daylight, inside the shrine, an even more strikingly sectarian ritual takes place. Shia pilgrims flagellate themselves with chains dangling with knife-blades and cry out to Ali, father of the martyred Hussain, and revered in Shia Islam. As they open their backs, sending blood onto the shrine’s floor, other pilgrims recoil. Many appear disgusted.

In theory, Sufism transcends Islamic sects. For example, Qalandar was a Shia; many—or most—of his devotees are Sunni. Yet the shrines of Sindh, where many Shia Muslims live, are increasingly seeing strident sectarian displays. This may be partly a reaction to the attacks Pakistani Shias increasingly face from fundamentalists like the Taliban. It is a sign of popular Sufism under duress.

Sufi scholars, in Karachi, Delhi and Lahore, are concerned by this. But none wants government help—least of all from a reviled Western government. Many also note that Sufism is not, as Westerners seem to think, uniform. The conservative Naqshbandis, followers of another of South Asia’s main orders, have helped spread jihad: there was a Naqshbandi insurgent group in Iraq.

Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most prominent Sufi saints, was not really of any order. He exists in a tradition of eccentric, mendicant Sufis. He was strongly influenced by Hinduism; many Hindus consider him a manifestation of Shiva. A Hindu performs the opening ritual of the annual urs. During the festival many devotees bring clay dishes of henna to Qalandar’s tomb, as to a Hindu bride on her wedding-night, and spread it on themselves, invoking the name of a Hindu water-god.

Amid syncretism, heresy thrives. Outside Qalandar’s mausoleum, just before dusk, a tall bearded man, wrapped in a black cloak and carrying a silver club, shouts into a loud-hailer: “Ali Allah! Allah Ali!”—“Ali is God! God is Ali!” He is Sayeed Ghafur Ali, a fine-looking dervish, and leader of a sect in Karachi which propagates this fearful blasphemy. In many Muslim places it would cost Mr Ali his head. But in Sehwan no one seems to mind. Asked, in a calmer setting, whether he has been a dervish for long, Mr Ali smiles and removes two tightly-bound parcels, about the size of American footballs, from his trouser pockets. They contain his hair, which grows in thick tresses under his cloak. Mr Ali says he has not visited a barber since he dedicated himself to Qalandar.

Unlike most renowned Sufi saints, Qalandar left little literature. In academic histories, his name hardly appears. To plug the gap, his devotees attribute miracles to him. One tells how Qalandar reconstituted a Hindu disciple, Bodhla Bahar, after an evil raja had made mincemeat of him. The narrator of this story may appear to have been smoking drugs. For Qalandar’s black-clad fakirs, many of whom are full time vagrants, much like Hinduism’s dread-locked saddhus, the urs is a wonderful opportunity to eat, dance and get stoned among friends. “Though I only smoke in the mornings to strengthen the body,” cautions Emir Bux, an elderly itinerant inside the shrine, with an orange hennaed beard and a headdress of curvy wooden snakes.

Sex is also to be had at the urs, but less freely. Sufi shrines have always appealed to prostitutes. This is partly because of the Sufis’ tolerance of sinners, but also because they make good places to sin. At Sehwan, which has a name for licentiousness, a transsexual prostitute—or hijra—called Ghazala says she came from Lahore, with 15 of her eunuch sisters, to pray and dance. Smoking a cigarette down to its filter, Ghazala, a muscular figure with greying temples, claims: “We came here only to worship our saint.” That is an unlikely story.

Presiding over this riot, from a grand house beside the shrine, is Mehdi Shah, a doctor from Islamabad, who recently inherited the title of sajjada nishin, or keeper of the shrine. This is an important office in Pakistan. The wardens of its most important shrines, including some, known as pirs, who claim descent from important saints, are among the country’s biggest landowners. This is partly a legacy of their usefulness to two former invaders of South Asia, the Mughals and British, both of whom patronised the shrine-keepers.

Since the early 1960s, Pakistani governments have been taking over the most lucrative shrines, including Qalandar’s. But Pakistan’s pirs are still formidable. By one estimate, pir politicians command 10% of the popular vote. The current prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and foreign minister, Shah Mahmud Qureshi, are both pirs.

Like so much else in Sehwan Sharif, this tradition has got messy. Mr Shah, the keeper of the shrine, is candid about the responsibilities pir-dom confers: “To guide people and make money.” But he regrets the competition for the office this has engendered. In Sehwan Sharif, several dozen local families claim to be guardians of the shrine. “There may be a thousand Tom, Dick and Harrys claiming to be sajjada nishin,” grumbles Mr Shah.

In a small room next to the shrine, decorated with peacock feathers, one of these wannabes, Paryal Shah, has set up shop. As Mr Shah, a bearded man rattling with amulets, enters the room, pilgrims hurl themselves at his feet. Grunting, occasionally slapping a pilgrim who crushes his toes, Mr Shah dispenses blessings among them. “God will help you,” he growls, doling out white cotton threads, blessed in advance, or a scrap of paper scribbled with a Koranic verse. It is hard to know how seriously anyone takes this charade. Mr Shah’s English-speaking right-hand, Ahmed Bhutto, winks and says that he and Mr Shah’s other disciples practice strict chastity: “I only do it with my wife!”

A more troublesome rival to Mehdi Shah is his uncle, Mozafir Ali Shah. They are locked in a property dispute so ugly that Mehdi Shah refuses even to visit his uncle’s house for a traditional family celebration: a dance performance by a visiting troupe of prostitutes. To the uninitiated, this splendid occasion is not obviously religious. The men of Mozafir Ali’s house sit in proud silence, as prostitutes straddle its courtyard, thrashing their long hair and kissing these hereditary notables’ knees. The women of the house rain rupee notes down on the dancers from a balcony discreetly above. A drummer shouts: “Sakhi Shahbaz Qalandar duma dum mast!”

True Sufis are embarrassed by such scenes. At Delhi’s great Sufi shrine, Mr Nizami, the keeper, says a Sufi must have three qualities: knowledge of Islam; love of God; and sanity.

Whatever else they lack, he scoffs, the devotees of Qalandar are insane: “there is no Sufi among them!” Mr Javed, the Sufi in Lahore, agrees. But he contrasts such harmless superstition, as he terms popular Sufi beliefs, with the ruthless literalism of the Taliban. He says: “I feel safe among shallow-minded occultists. I do not feel safe among literalists.”

Scholars like these are Sufism’s true keepers. But in the undergrowth of popular Sufism, it is remarkable how little of their prescriptions survive. It has always been so. The diversity of South Asian Islam is a staggering multicultural achievement. If its mystics, orthodox and popular, are now increasingly besieged by mullahs, fellows of the Taliban, the massive gatherings at Sehwan and other Pakistani shrines suggest they will not be overrun soon.

Moreover, South Asia’s popular Sufism is not all degenerate. Some of South Asia’s greatest artistic achievements, especially in architecture, are expressions of it. The shrine to Baba Hassan Din rising in Lahore is among them.

Mr Qadeer and Mr Niaz, the disciples of Hafiz Iqbal, began work on it a few months after his death. It is being constructed entirely in natural materials, including clay bricks, white marble, gemstones, and lime plaster strengthened, as luck would have it, by the thousands of frogs that perished in it. The craftsmen building the shrine use traditional tools and techniques, some revived especially for the task.

Unsupported by concrete, the shrine’s domes rest on the weight of their own artful construction. Its cloisters are modelled on the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Its bejewelled mosaics are copied from the walls of Delhi’s 17th-century Red Fort. On the walls of the false burial chambers, Koranic verses, chosen by Hafiz Iqbal, have been inscribed in an ink made from burned mustard oil, in a style of calligraphy taken from the Taj Mahal. It is a wonderful creation.

Kamil Khan Mumtaz, the architect, a Sufi initiate himself, believes there has been no Islamic monument built like it, anywhere in the Muslim world, for 300 years. May it last longer.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Tehran: Yalda Night festival will be officially added to Iran's List of National Treasures in a special ceremony to be held on December 20.

The ceremony will be attended by the Vice President in charge of Iran's Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO), Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, and several other cultural figures on Saturday, press tv reported.

Yalda eve, 21st of December, is considered the longest night of the year when ancient Iranians celebrated the birth of Mithra, the goddess of light.

However, it is now considered a time when family members get together at the home of the elders until after midnight.

They are served with dried fruits, nuts, and winter fruits like pomegranates and watermelons, which are said to symbolize the red color of dawn in the sky.

During the long night, they also practice bibliomancy with the poetry of the highly respected mystic Iranian poet, Hafez.

What the great poet Josh Malihabadi said of versifiers who chant their verses at mushairas (gatherings of Urdu poets) in tarannum (chant) applies even more so to qawwali which has been much debased in recent decades.

Gone are the affluent ones who held private mehfils (gatherings) to which a select few were invited to listen to qawwals of distinction. They sat on carpets which facilitated interaction between the qawwals and the audience and among the knowledgeable ones in the audience as well.

In their place has come “the performance” in crowded halls into which anyone can saunter by buying a ticket. The singer has only his own standards to live up to. The audience, particularly in Mumbai, does not expect much. It knows no better. Bollywood, predictably, played a big role in the debasement. Even singers such as Mehdi Hasan and Ghulam Ali compromised with the Mumbai audience. So do some qawwals. Qawwali suffers.

It was very refreshing, therefore, to attend a Sufi and mystic music festival in Mumbai recently at which qawwali was sung in good taste. And the occasion was not unduly marred by the exhibitionism of some members of “Bombay society” whose incapacity for appreciation was vividly reflected in the crudeness of their flamboyant gestures.

There was more than Sufi music from India. Bektashi sufiana songs were sung by Latif Bolat of Turkey.

But the prince of them all was Sheikh Yasin Al Tohamy and his group from Egypt. A monument of dignity, he sang with a devotion that moved even those who did not know Arabic. It was a classic performance by a master of the art, unaffected by a desire to play to the gallery. The festival, an all-India event, is aptly entitled Ruhaniyat (spirituality).

That is the true test of qawwali which Regula Qureshi aptly defines as “the song genre performed at the mahfil-e-sama, the Sufi assembly held for achieving mystical experience”.

The singing group is accompanied by the tabla or dholak and by rhythmic clapping; “the stress-intense” musical metre is played on the tabla or dholak, reinforced by clapping. Sufis identify it with zarb, the heartbeat, which witnesses zikr, repeated innovations of God. To the vulgar, the music and rhythmic clapping suffice for exhibitionist arousal.

Urdu poetry is rich in stylised metaphor. The qawwals sing the mystical poetry of the Sufi masters, which abound in imagery of the cup (paimana), wine (sharab), tavern (maikhana), cupbearer (saqi), the candle (shama), the moth (parwana), the rose (gul) and the nightingale (bulbul), intoxication, sobriety, lover and beloved, yearning for mystical union, and the pain of separation. This is often misunderstood by those unfamiliar with Sufi lore. The vulgar in the audience relish it.

In an essay written two decades ago Regula Qureshi lamented that “the ghazal song of the traditional mahfil is hardly alive today”. The qawwali, however, thrives at dargahs (shrines). It was invigorated by great qawwals such as the Sabri brothers and by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

The qawwali in its pristine form continues to be sung at the dargahs of Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti of Ajmer, Gharib Nawaz (vide the writer’s article “Patron of the poor”, Frontline, June 8, 2001) and of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya in New Delhi.

Regula Qureshi’s book, which includes a CD containing an hour of excellent qawwali music, is a pioneering and definitive study on a neglected subject, a work of remarkable erudition. She distinguishes between “the popular version” for entertainment and “the authentic spiritual song that transports the mystic towards union with God”. Qawwali is the central ritual of Sufism.

Its founding father was Hazrat Nizamuddin’s favourite disciple, Amir Khushrau, whose verses and tunes form the core of the ritual to this day. Sama – listening to mystical music – is not free from controversy. Sufi orders such as the Naqshbandiya or the Suhrawardiya prohibit use of musical instruments. There is not an aspect, not a point, however esoteric, that the book ignores.

The Lamp of Love

Amatullah Armstrong Chishti was trained as an art teacher and ran an art restoration business in Sydney. She travelled ceaselessly and embraced Islam in 1984 in the Algerian Sahara desert.

She subsequently entered the Chishti Sufi order and is working with Mehboob Sabri to spread the Sufi message in Pakistan and abroad. Her travels took her to the shrines of all the great Sufi saints in India and Pakistan.

The Sabri brothers have an ancient lineage. The eldest, Ghulam Farid, the “king of qawwals”, died in 1994 followed by Kamal, leaving Maqbook Ahmed and Mehmool Ghaznavi to continue the tradition.

The book is part autobiography and part monograph on Sufism and its famed ritual, qawwali. It is a good supplement to Qureshi’s book.

Lahore: The Pakistan Study Centre History Department and Pakistan Research Society will organise a three-day international conference on ‘History, Politics and Society: The Punjab’ on December 29, 2008.

A press statement issued by the Punjab University History and Pakistan Studies Department said that 39 delegates from United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Germany, France, Russia and India have agreed to attend the conference.

All public sector universities and the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) will send their delegates to attend the conference. The organisers have urged the scholars to write articles related to Punjabi history, culture and society under the British rule.

The topics issued to the scholars for writing include: preparation of reports and gazetteers, economic upliftment under British rule, British impact on Punjabi culture and education, British roots of Punjab’s administrative machinery, working and comparison of Punjab’s civil service, feudal classes under British rule, Pirs and Sufism, Punjabi political climate to make Jinnah an icon, the change of wind in Punjab, Punjabi leadership, and pre-independence and post-independence Punjab.

The Higher Education Commission and the Punjab University will fund the conference.

Islamabad: The Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) will hold a National Writers Conference and International Seminar on Sufism on December 19 and 20.

The theme of the conference is “Literature for Peace” and prominent writers and intellectuals from all over the country will participate in it.

Tariq Shahid, a PAL official, told Daily Times that the inaugural session of the National Writers Conference would be held on December 19 (Friday) at 3pm at the auditorium of the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), Islamabad.

He said that Pakistan Academy of Letters Chairman Fakhar Zaman would deliver the keynote address at the inaugural session.

The conference would consist of four sessions, the PAL official said, adding that Ustad Hamid Ali Khan would present Arifana Kalam on the first day of the conference at 8pm. The second session of conference will start on December 20 (Saturday) at 9:30am at the same venue. During the second session of the conference, a seminar titled “Writers Role in the Promotion of the World Peace” would be held. University of Gujrat Vice Chancellor Dr M Nizamuddin would deliver keynote address at the seminar.

The third session of the conference will start at 12pm on the second day with a seminar titled “International Seminar on Sufism”. University of Health Sciences Lahore Vice Chancellor Dr Hussain Mubashir will present keynote address at the seminar.

The third seminar of the conference will be held at 4pm on the second day at the same venue. The theme of the seminar is “Literature for Peace”. AIOU Islamabad Vice Chancellor Dr Mehmoodul Hassan Butt will present keynote address at the seminar.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

The similarities between the United States and Saudi Arabia, while not outweighing their differences, are significant - and rooted in their respective political and religious histories of the past three hundred years

Saudi Arabia and the United States are the Odd Couple of the twenty-first century. One a monarchy, the other a democracy. One founded on a restrictive faith, the other a beacon of religious freedom. One blessed by vast petroleum resources, the other cursed by a gargantuan appetite for oil.

Their governments bound to each other by ties of money and armament, yet their populations distrustful of each other’s political designs, angry about violent deeds attributed to the other, and disdainful of their respective faiths.

From a longer view, however, they are strikingly similar countries whose historical trajectories may have been destined to converge.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the interior of Arabia was the wild and unsettled hinterland beyond the old and sophisticated cosmopolitan cultures of the likes of Istanbul and Cairo. The hardship, starkness, and simplicity of life in the heart of the peninsula contrasted sharply with the luxuries available in these imperial urban areas.

In the early 1700s, the interior of what would become the United States of America by century’s end was also wild and unsettled. Colonists living in the small cities on the Atlantic coast looked to London and Paris for culture and sophistication while European faces were seldom seen west of the Appalachian Mountains. The most sophisticated Bostonians and Philadelphians seemed like bumpkins when they traveled to Europe, and settlers on the frontier lived lives no less stark and simple than the bedouin of Najd.

In 1703, two men were born whose teachings would find fertile ground in these remote, scantily populated lands: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and John Wesley.

After an early upbringing in Najd, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab traveled to the rich and historic commercial city of Basra to acquire an education in Islamic law and theology. When he returned to Arabia, he called for a purification of Islamic religious practice and a return to the simple ideals and lifestyle of the early Muslim community (salaf). Political opposition to his reforms caused him to seek refuge with Muhammad ibn Saud, the ruler of the town of Dir‘iya.

Politically their alliance planted the seed of the Saudi kingdom just as religiously it gave rise to the Wahhabi form of Islam, and more broadly to the current of Salafism that is today often associated with Muslim militancy around the world.

Meanwhile, John Wesley was born near London and educated at Oxford where he led a revivalist “Holy Club” whose members were taunted as “Methodists.” (“Wahhabi” similarly originated as a pejorative term for believers who called themselves “Muwahhidun,” that is, believers in God’s unity or tawhid).

In 1735, John and his brother Charles traveled to the colony of Georgia, leaving their friend George Whitefield behind to advance their revivalist work in England. Though the Wesleys spent only one year in the New World, George Whitefield followed them abroad making seven trans-Atlantic voyages and delivering riveting open-air sermons that touched off the tumultuous revivalist movement known as the Great Awakening.

Wesley died in 1791, a year before Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. His Methodist followers and like-minded Protestant preachers inspired waves of popular revivalism focused on simple living and abstinence from sinful practices -- like drinking alcohol and dancing -- always aware that even the most pious person could deviate from the right path. Their message was enormously influential in the frontier of the American South and Middle West -- and remains so today.

The doctrinal differences between Wahhabism and Methodism are immense, but their followers nevertheless shared certain traits. Both groups endured the charges of their enemies that they were preachers of fanaticism. Both stressed in their daily lives a constant and active adherence to God’s laws as they understood them and a similarly energetic avoidance of practices they considered evil. Both believed that you had to continually show your faith in your actions if you were to merit salvation. And both tirelessly spread their beliefs and practices among others of their faith, Muslims or Christians respectively, both at home and in faraway lands.

Historians of the modern Middle East usually remark that the United States played a negligible role in the region prior to World War II. At a political level (leaving aside the influence of Woodrow Wilson’s advocacy of national self-determination) this is a sound judgment. But it overlooks the religious level, and the massive commitment of American Protestants to missionary work throughout the world.

Originally inspired by the periodic waves of revival that began with George Whitefield and the Great Awakening, tens of thousands of young Americans -- usually educated in the best colleges -- journeyed abroad to spread their faith or demonstrate to others the quality of American Protestant life. The Ottoman Empire and the Persian Gulf were especial areas of American missionary enterprise.

A similar Wahhabi zeal for reviving Islam expressed itself in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries -- less in missionary activities than in militant action to suppress what Wahhabi preachers deemed idolatrous practices, particularly those connected with Sufism, Shi‘ism, and the veneration of saintly tombs. But in the twentieth century, Wahhabi missionary activities expanded enormously.

Indeed, Saudi Arabia and the United States are today the world’s two principal exporters of religious missionaries.

The techniques, training, and political involvement of the two sorts of missionaries differ in various ways. But both movements draw strength from almost unlimited private financial donations, and from the reluctance of the American and Saudi governments to put limits on such donations. That many Wahhabi and Protestant missionaries see nothing but evil and political subversion in the actions of their counterparts serves to conceal the fundamental similarity of their social and religious roots.

Comparison with what became the cultural heartlands of desert Arabia and frontier America makes this similarity clear.

Europe is largely post-Christian, and Europeans are often dismayed by the importance of evangelical Christianity in American social and political life. In return, evangelical Americans see sinful Europe as a land that is in need of religious revival. In the same way, once great Islamic cities like Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus, Tunis, and Fez are seen by Salafi Muslims as fields for missionary revival more than as sites of original religious inspiration.

This shared history of religious revival and puritanism on the peripheries of the old cultural and imperial centers of Europe and the Middle East sometimes serves as an excuse to ignore imperial history. The United States rejects any connection with British and French imperialism and thus acts as though it has nothing to learn from their historical experiences. Saudi Arabia similarly regards the histories under imperialism of other Middle Eastern states as being irrelevant to its own standing in the region. Neither government wastes much time studying history.

Yet their parallel religious pasts pose problems. No one doubts the depth, sincerity, and political influence of the evangelical communities of the American South and Middle West, though many more-or-less secular Americans on the East and West Coasts complain bitterly about them. No American president can make foreign, much less domestic, policy without taking their views and potential opposition into account. Yet as a country constitutionally committed to separating religion from government, the United States government will never formally endorse or condemn the private and church activities of overseas missionaries and their legion of financial backers at home. Despite its constitution, the United States has been and continues to be a religiously expansive country. Just not at the level of government.

The ruling family of Saudi Arabia is unconstrained by any constitution, but its history of identification with Wahhabism exerts similar constraints. No matter how vocal the complaints that Wahhabi missionaries and Wahhabi-supported institutions coerce fellow Muslims and engage in unsavory political activities, a Saudi king can no more curtail the his subjects’ private financial support for the propagation of their faith than an American president can stop evangelical radio and television ministers from collecting donations to support missionary activity.

Independence from imported oil, the non-stop call of the recent American presidential campaign, was a barely disguised plea to curtail relations with Saudi Arabia, which is indelibly linked in many American minds to the terrorists who carried out the attacks of 9/11. And there is a parallel yearning on the part of many Saudis to see the end of the heavy-handed American imperialism that scared the kingdom into a war with Iraq in 1991, imposed twelve years of fruitless and murderous sanctions on the Iraqi people, invaded a neighboring state at great loss of life, and now supports an Iraqi political system that has little place for the country’s once dominant Sunni minority.

In sum, private Americans -- some but not all -- express suspicion, and even hatred, for Saudi Arabia. Private Saudis – again, some but not all -- feel the same about the United States. Yet their respective governments do not even dream of getting along without one another.

America needs Saudi oil, Saudi money, and Saudi influence in the Muslim world. So say the policy makers. Likewise, Saudi Arabia cannot survive without American arms and American military protection.

Religion focuses much of the mutual bad will. But neither government -- given their complex histories of involvement and compromise with their citizens’ faith traditions -- can forthrightly address this painful source of discord.

Is it possible to visualize evangelical ministers and Wahhabi ulama sitting down together and searching for common ground on the basis of a shared reverence for Jesus Christ? Probably not.
Is it conceivable that a forthright acknowledgement of the religion problem by both governments could lead to an American commitment to reducing Islamophobia in the United States and a modest Saudi relaxation of the existing restrictions on Christian religious observances in the kingdom? This may be within the realm of the possible.

In the meantime, it would well behoove the political and diplomatic community to recognize that the similarities between the United States and Saudi Arabia -- while by no means outweighing their differences -- are significant and deeply rooted in their respective political and religious histories.

Richard Bulliet is Professor of History at Columbia University and author of Islam: The View from the Edge and The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization.

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